News headlines in 2011, page 89

Food price volatility featuring high prices is likely to continue and probably increase next year, making poor farmers even more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity, the global report on food insecurity released Monday by the United Nations' three Rome-based food agencies predicts.

As Liberia gears up for Tuesday’s presidential and legislative elections, officials stationed near the border with Ivory Coast have expressed concern that insufficient border security - a problem highlighted by two recent cross-border attacks - could fuel electoral violence.

In the case of Libya surprisingly few have protested compared with, say, the war on Iraq. From right to left, human rights and peace movements as well as scores of intellectuals have -admittedly some of them more or less hesitantly- endorsed NATO countries’ intervention, mainly with reference to there being so little time and that a genocide on thousands of people were immanent. It’s hard to believe that they all love war, isn’t it?, writes Jan Oberg, director and co-founder of the Transnational Foundation (TFF) in Lund Sweden.

The Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) will hold its weeklong first-ever Global Forum on Sanitation and Hygiene in Mumbai, India, October 9 through October 14. Some 500 activists, business leaders, health professionals, governmental officials and others are expected to participate in the forum. ( www.wsscc-global-forum.org ).

As microcredit institutions - once touted as the vital ‘last mile’ in extending credit to poor rural women -fight a government backlash that has encouraged honest borrowers to turn defaulters, hopes for revival hinge on a new bill awaiting passage in India’s parliament.

Sitting in the shade of a small lemon tree in the German Colony area of Haifa, eight Palestinian activists began day two of an open-ended hunger strike Sunday, in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners who have been striking for nearly two weeks in protest against poor prison conditions and a lack of basic rights.

'On Saturday, we as a nation atoned for our sins. I as a Jew feel ashamed of myself. I'm asking for forgiveness,' declared Ron Hulday, mayor of this mixed city, immediately at the closing of the Day of Atonement.

As the Norwegian Nobel Committee named Liberian President Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf a joint winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, opposition party supporters were flooding the streets of Monrovia to demand that she be voted out of office in the upcoming election.

As microcredit institutions - once touted as the vital ‘last mile’ in extending credit to poor rural women -fight a government backlash that has encouraged honest borrowers to turn defaulters, hopes for revival hinge on a new bill awaiting passage in India’s parliament.

As media freedoms throughout the occupied Palestinian territories continue to decline, human rights groups are urging the international community to pressure Israeli and Palestinian security forces to respect and facilitate the ability of journalists to do their work.