News headlines in 2011, page 82

In his latest military intervention overseas, U.S. President Barack Obama announced Friday that he is dispatching about 100 'combat-equipped' military personnel to East Africa to help track the fugitive Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and its top commanders.

Aggressively repressed and forced underground by the recently deposed dictator Zine Abadine Ben Ali, the Tunisian Islamist party Ennahda is poised to become the dominant force in Tunisian politics.

When Jaydee Hanson, then-bioethics director for the United Methodist Church, spoke out publicly against gene patents over 15 years ago, some in the biotech industry compared his stance to the Catholic Church's persecution of Galileo, the 15th century astronomer who discovered the moons of Jupiter.

'If we can manage it, we buy something at the butcher's every 15 days, even if it's only a bone, although we normally just eat maize and beans,' says Marvin Fajardo, a small-scale farmer and father of three from the southern Guatemalan province of Escuintla.

The global food crisis, which threatens to aggravate hunger and poverty, makes it necessary for agriculture to diversify, adapt to climate change and raise productivity, say FAO and experts.

Fourteen-year-old Shafat Ahmad works as a domestic helper in the house of a Srinagar-based government employee in Kashmir. His younger sister embroiders shawls in an unregistered textile venture in her native village of Beeru.

When Sara Gutiérrez began working her land, she knew a lot about hairdressing, her first profession, but nothing about agricultural techniques. 'The first crops were really bad, until I learned how to get good yields even in difficult conditions,' she said.

Four months ago, international media was replete with reports of Syrian civilians fleeing Bashar al-Assad's regime into southern Turkey. Today, media both in and outside of Turkey appear to have forgotten the plight of these refugees.

Developing countries, particularly from Africa, are concerned about attempts by industrialised nations to change the negotiating dynamic of the World Trade Organization.

The countries of Central America have set their sights on research and innovation in the production of tomatoes, cassava, potatoes and avocados to increase food supply and combat hunger, which mainly affects rural areas.