News headlines in 2011, page 199

A day after she led Pheu Thai party to a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in Thailand, Yingluck Shinawatra has announced a new five-party coalition government.

For over four years now, Tendai Dzingirai * has lived each day afraid that it may be his last. Dzingirai is one of almost 60 inmates on death row in Zimbabwe’s prisons. But like the other prisoners, Dzingirai does not know when he will finally meet his fate — especially since the country has not had an executioner for the last six years.

The human spirit has a truly remarkable capacity -the ability to generate hope from the most devastating of crises. This ability to create value can be seen in the response to the earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, writes Daisaku Ikeda, a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and peacebuilder and president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI).

'Farmed fish are now better than sea fish in Gaza. They shouldn't be, but because of the sewage in Gaza's sea and the Israeli fishing restrictions, farmed fish are cleaner and healthier than sea fish.'

The besieger is besieged, such is the forlorn fact emanating from the order by Greece to block the ships docked at its ports from setting sail to the Palestinian strip of land, and that fact seems to have sealed the Flotilla's fate.

Since pro-democracy protests began last March, Syria’s once profoundly secular society has been shaken up, with deep divides splitting up communities along sectarian lines.

The violence that engulfed downtown Cairo last week and left over 1,000 civilians injured took everyone by surprise, but was not unexpected. It had been brewing for nearly five months.

Women activists in Bahrain have acknowledged their poor showing in the recent unrest as well as in efforts to fight sectarianism, and blamed it on rifts within their organisations.

A successful entrepreneurial programme in the north of Namibia that infuses farming practices with gender-responsive environmentalism may serve as a model for other countries on the African continent.

When Bina Tamang was told that she could earn money by not felling trees in the tiny forest that serves as the source of fuel and fodder for 65 families in her area, the 27-year-old was incredulous.