News headlines in 2008, page 18

Lawyers representing the families of the victims of two high-profile massacres committed in the early 1990s in Peru, and who are taking part in the trial against former president Alberto Fujimori, have questioned the independence of the future heads of the Supreme Court and Lima High Court.

One night, in a country swept up in a long and harrowing armed conflict, Liberian social worker Leymah Gbowee dreamt that she gathered women together to pray for peace.

While Uruguay’s human development levels are improving, the country has lagged behind the faster progress made by some of its neighbours due to fluctuations in its economic performance, according to a local study sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

In light of the Iranian presidential election coming in mid-2009 and the U.S. distaste for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President-elect Barack Obama is being advised to avoid any communication with Tehran until after Iranians vote next June.

Thanks to the callousness of its military rulers, Burma has aacquired another unenviable statistic. It has replaced Cambodia as the country with the highest annual number of landmine victims in the region.

Less than a week after the European Commission promised to study whether trade preferences granted to Colombia should be revoked because of the country's human rights record, Brussels officials have decided to extend the preferences for a further two years.

While the six-party talks currently underway in Beijing to get North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme seem to be making slow progress, Japan, one of the parties, is not unduly worried.

Even though their armed forces remain on high alert, India and Pakistan appear to be inching away from confrontation over the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which have precipitated a major crisis in their bilateral relations.

The World Bank has urged the international community to look to Latin America, the world's most bio-diverse region, for innovative solutions to avert a climate crisis.

The government’s recognition of the human rights violations committed by the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989) was the most outstanding achievement this year, according to a new Human Rights Report on Paraguay.