News headlines in February 2009, page 15

Six years ago, authorities in the northern Nigerian state of Kano suspended polio vaccination campaigns for thirteen months. It was a major setback for eradication of the disease, which has since regained a foothold in Africa's most populous nation and re-infected several other countries that were considered polio-free.

A developing national arts scene requires a developing national arts center, with luck one that is owned and operated by artists themselves. In Swaziland, the growth of indigenous talent has been complemented by the flowering of a venue popular with performers, audiences and critics.

Inside the confines of a modest 275-square-metre office space in this southern California city, the human imagination is running wild.

His first days as prime minister of Zimbabwe's government of national unity have, as expected, thrown down several challenges to Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change.

Seven major U.S. and international rights groups are calling on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to make human rights issues a top priority in her meetings in Beijing next week with Chinese officials.

The HIV infection rate in women over 50 in Brazil has more than tripled since 1996, making this population group the prime target of the government's HIV/AIDS prevention campaign during the carnival festivities.

Rarely a week goes by without a problem of water scarcity hitting the headlines. The acute droughts in Kenya, Argentina and the U.S. state of California are among the latest phenomena to illustrate that the global environment has been dangerously degraded. And participants in the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, heard that the planet could be destined towards 'water bankruptcy'.

For months now, yellowed pastures, cracked soil and dead livestock have been the landscape of what otherwise are the most productive farming areas of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Scientists say it is so far impossible to determine if the drought is a manifestation of climate change processes.

A prominent British-American lawyer who represents an Ethiopian-born Guantanamo detainee is charging that U.S. Defence Department officials are intentionally concealing evidence of his client's rendition and torture from President Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair did not appear to be on the same page this week when they talked about Iran's nuclear intentions. Obama referred in his news conference to Iran's 'development of a nuclear weapon or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon', but Blair said 'we do not know whether Iran currently intends to develop nuclear weapons'.