News headlines in March 2009, page 14

Nicole, the Filipina who accused a United States serviceman of raping her in 2005, has recanted her testimony, but women’s groups supporting her in the case do not see this development as a defeat.

For all the goodwill that U.S. President Barack Obama is showing toward Latin America, he may find his efforts overwhelmed by the global economic crisis and growing pressure from labour unions - a key Democratic constituency - opposed to the kind of 'free trade'' agreements favoured by his two predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

The group of women known as the Ladies in White are holding six days of protests this week in the Cuban capital – one for each year their dissident husbands, fathers or sons have spent in prison.

Clinical staff at U.S. immigration detention centres systematically abuse detainees in their charge, according to two reports by Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigration Advocacy Centre (FIAC) that describe the medical care system in these facilities as 'dangerously inadequate'.

Reconciliation talks between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in Cairo this week yielded an agreement to hold national elections early next year. The two sides, however, remain deadlocked over the proposed terms of a national unity government.

A leaked Red Cross report, detailing chilling accounts of prisoner torture in 'black sites' run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, has underlined the need for an independent commission of inquiry into possible war crimes committed by senior officials during the presidency of George W. Bush, according to a statement by 25 prominent clergymen and women.

The clean development mechanism, the Kyoto Protocol instrument that allows industries in rich countries to earn emission reduction credits by financing environment-friendly projects in developing countries, is a perverse but at the moment necessary tool to fight global warming, says a German environmental expert.

Ten years after the NATO bombing of Serbia, concern is rising over a rise in the number of reported cases of cancer.

Citing human rights concerns, members of the U.S. Congress have blocked approval of a free trade accord negotiated between the Bush administration and Colombia. Yet on the other side of the Atlantic, European Union officials have expressed their determination to proceed with talks aimed at striking a deal with the right-wing government.

The biotech industry is using the increase in global hunger as a tool to win support for GM crops, writes Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute and the editor of Voices from Africa: African Farmers & Environmentalists Speak out Against the New Green Revolution.