News headlines in 2011, page 57

Preceding the UN atomic watchdog's report on Iran's nuclear quest, a flurry of reports about Israel increasingly tilting towards preventive military action against Iran highlights U.S. military support of Israel, but tests its influence over its ally.

Hundreds of Japanese women have been converging on the Japanese capital demanding better relief for some 30,000 children exposed to nuclear radiation by the Fukushima meltdown.

Unless civil society activists launch their own programme of action at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro next summer (Jun. 4-6), the event will be little more than an expensive talkfest.

He could be Pakistan’s Obama, although he spews venom at the United States government for its drone attacks and its policies in the region. But Imran Khan speaks of change and, like Obama, enjoys huge online support from the youth.

According to the Human Development Report 2011 released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) this week, Latin America remains the region with the highest income inequality, even as the situation has improved in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Honduras, Mexico and Peru.

'We’ve walked all the way here to tell everybody that we are being treated like dogs,' said 23-year old Hamuda Bubakar, among a couple of hundred black refugees protesting at Martyrs Square in Tripoli. 'I’d rather be killed here. I wouldn’t be the first, or the last.'

Assurances to women by the winners of the Tunisian elections that they will be free not to wear the Muslim veil has come as music to the ears of Turkish secularists. It was another signpost confirming Turkey’s growing position and influence among Arab countries.

While the Greek bailout and stimulus package dominated discussion amoung the Group of 20 (G20) major industrialised and emerging market economies at the high-level summit in Cannes, France, this week, the proposed financial transactions tax (FTT) received meagre attention.

'I learned to not be afraid, and to love myself. Before, I never wanted to talk to people because I felt like they looked down on me and that I was no good,' says 12-year-old Hilda Tura, one of the participants in a programme fostering leadership among indigenous girls in Guatemala.

With a giant deep-water oil rig steaming slowly toward the Gulf of Mexico and the waters just off Cuba, the administration of President Barack Obama is being pushed and pulled by different interests over what, if anything, to do about it.