News headlines in March 2012, page 23

When he returned home after over two decades as a political exile, Aung Zaw, a prominent figure among Burma’s exiled media community, was served a slice of truth by the country’s notorious censorship board.

For Taiseer Khatib and his wife Lana, the most difficult aspect of Israel’s policy of forced family separation is the impact it is having on their children. 'Our children are paying the price psychologically. We are trying to protect them, but they have a good sense of what’s going on and they understand that there’s something wrong,' Khatib, who has two children under the age of five, Adnan and Yosra, tells IPS.

In Haitian refugee camps, women are still crammed under plastic or cloth tarps that provide no security and quickly become overheated by the sun. Sexual abuse, harassment, assault and rape run rampant, even as political responses to these dangers have stalled. But KOFAVIV, a women's organisation founded by and for rape survivors, offers a glimmer of hope.

India's premier political dynasty - the Nehru Gandhi clan - has failed to charm voters in elections held across five states in the country, including the key Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh.

'Our past experiences have demonstrated that a mere ceasefire agreement will not result in the durable peace that we have long sought. Political peace is the only way forward.'

As many as seven in 10 women in the world report experiencing physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lifetime, leaving a devastating aftermath for individuals, communities and nations.

Women victims of domestic violence in a city in Argentina will be given an electronic device with a panic button that will bring them immediate assistance from the police.

Cuba never asked to be invited to a Summit of the Americas, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said in response to protests from some governments in the region at Havana’s exclusion from the meetings of Western Hemisphere leaders.

Central America, a narrow tropical isthmus flanked by the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, suffered 259 extreme weather-related events between 1930 and 2009, while the cumulative effects of innumerable smaller-scale events have not even been recorded.

Decades after peasants’ networks have advocated for a new legal instrument to protect the rights of small farmers to land, seeds, traditional agricultural knowledge and freedom to determine the prices of their production, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) may decide to start drafting a declaration on peasants’ rights next week.