News headlines in 2011, page 96

Women's rights in Afghanistan are once again under threat after 10 years of progress, two leading British aid agencies have said.

So far in Brazil, the 'curse of oil' is only apparent in the political sphere, where Congress is divided about how to distribute the country's increasingly large oil earnings. But in the meantime the recent discoveries of offshore reserves in the Atlantic ocean are breathing new life into the shipbuilding industry.

As a follow-up to a General Assembly resolution adopted recently. the United Nations last week announced an international competition for the creation of a Permanent Memorial to honour victims of Slavery and Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The communities living on the South Sudan-Sudan border may face genocide if the conflict between the two countries disputing control of oil reserves is not resolved.

China, a major player in the oil industries of South Sudan and Sudan, could use its influence to stop the escalating violence between the two countries that has seen the displacement of thousands of people and a reduction in oil production, a United States State Department official says.

Days after his half-hearted conciliatory U.N. appearance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already approved the construction of 1,100 flats in occupied East Jerusalem. Yet on Sunday, he threw his support behind the new Mideast Quartet's peace plan with the Palestinians.

Thailand is preparing to stir the pot in the international rice market with its fragrant jasmine rice nurtured by a new policy. But while the new policy pays farmers a great deal more, there are fears that the high prices could make Thai rice uncompetitive.

The European Union’s economic alliance may be embattled and on the verge of collapse but in some parts of the world its integration model is still a beacon. Experts from both sides of the Taiwan Strait — one of the world’s potentially most explosive areas - are studying the conflict resolution experience of the European Union in the hope of taking the precarious relationship between China and Taiwan forward.

Every working day a long queue of people forms outside the State Translation Service in Thission in downtown Athens from early in the morning. Most are youngsters processing documents they need to leave Greece for study or work. Many move on to queue later outside embassies for visas.

'Please God, make my breasts disappear.' Joyce Forghab used to pray the same line every night during the month she was suffering from breast ironing. The shocking practice, carried out by a quarter of mothers in Cameroon, is meant to reverse female sexual development.