News headlines in 2011, page 72

When the former president of Cape Verde, Pedro de Verona Rodrigues Pires, was recently awarded the five-million-dollar African Leadership prize, the ex-Portuguese colony that he headed for nearly 10 years was singled out as one of the key African success stories for 'good governance', including multi-party democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights.

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has withstood political pressure, bad weather, police violence, and over a thousand arrests, and is continuing to grow in New York City a month in.

President Cristina Fernández's smashing victory in Argentina, with nearly 54 percent of the vote, raises questions about how she will handle her growing supremacy.

The Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) began a wide process of consultation among its members this week with a view to an upcoming national conference charged with charting policies on issues that range from generational renewal and the internal functioning of the party to dealing with corruption and other social problems.

The long-time dictator who ruled Libya for nearly four decades with an iron fist may be gone, but racial hatred surfaces increasingly now by the day.

Nine months after a popular election toppled the dictatorship of former Tunisian president Zine Abadine Ben Ali, voters headed to the polls Sunday to cast their ballots for fresh leaders to rewrite the laws of the country’s political system.

The window to limit global warming to less than two degrees C is closing so fast it can be measured in months, a new scientific analysis revealed Sunday.

As extreme weather conditions, rising carbon emissions, unprecedented global economic crises and widening social inequalities throw the planet increasingly off balance, the world is gearing up for another earth summit.

The upheaval of the Arab Spring has provided fertile ground to plant the seed of a new framework for human rights that moves beyond monitoring violations. Rights advocates want to integrate human rights into the fabric of daily life and are working at the community level to establish the first Human Rights City in the Middle East.

If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear a case on gene patents, observers say the resulting face-off - between a large genetics testing company and a vocal coalition of breast cancer patient advocates — will have a massive impact because of what is at stake: valuable information about the human genome.