News headlines in 2011, page 81

In the wooden, sheet-metal roofed house, the exact spot where Vanesa Coicué, an 11-year-old Nasa Indian girl, fell is marked by white and yellow chrysanthemums in a plastic soda bottle, along with a lit candle and an orange tree seedling.

In a new project that has tackled one of the most divisive issues plaguing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a diverse group of academics, architects, urban planners and Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups are examining how the right of return of Palestinian refugees can be implemented on the ground.

Israel's prison authority has begun processing the first batch of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to be swapped on Tuesday for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who's been held in captivity by Hamas-affiliated groups for more than five years.

Claims by neo-conservative and right-wingers that Iranian influence in Latin America poses a growing security threat to the United States seem exaggerated, at best, with recent allegations that Tehran sought the help of an Iranian- American used-car salesman in a high-profile assassination plot.

Whether the world’s largest open-cut mine on this island territory of Papua New Guinea (PNG) will resume copper and gold production, after being mothballed for 22 years, will depend on how satisfied matrilineal landowners are with the proposals.

Five years into democracy, with the elections just a few weeks away, the majority of Congolese children continue to face a bleak future.

Sudan and South Sudan will eventually agree on a reasonable oil-sharing agreement between the two nations as there has been political will from both sides to find a resolution.

'Humanity is the only desert-making species and we’ve been degrading usable land at one percent per year,' says Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Responding to pressure from civil society and members within their own ranks, the Group of 20 industrialised and emerging countries on Saturday said they were committed to reforming the financial sector and were examining innovative methods to fund development.

In a new project that has tackled one of the most divisive issues plaguing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a diverse group of academics, architects, urban planners and Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups are examining how the right of return of Palestinian refugees can be implemented on the ground.