News headlines in April 2009, page 14

After an initial period of putting policy-makers in place, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is slowly rolling out its strategy for dealing with Iran. But the process is a work in progress, said several experts at a policy conference here, happy to dole out advice for what the administration’s next moves should be.

Human rights advocates were quick to praise President Barack Obama for Thursday's release of the infamous 'torture memos' used by the Bush-era Justice Department to justify cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of war-on-terror prisoners. However, they appear unanimously critical of the president’s decision not to prosecute the Central Intelligence Agency operatives who used these techniques.

Beijing’s decade-old flirt with lucrative gambling in the booming casino town of Macau has gone decidedly sour.

Three months after the end of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and nearly four months after former prime minister Ehud Olmert started it, the standoff between Israel and Hamas is as unresolved as ever.

Weekend senatorial elections in Haiti are mired in controversy as Fanmi Lavalas (FL), the political party widely backed by the poor majority, has been disqualified.

In May 2008, South Africa was rocked by the worst xenophobic attacks that the country has ever seen. Less than a year later, the issue is almost invisible from the national election campaign.

Slovakia's interior minister is facing calls to resign amid claims of institutionalised racism in the country's police force after a video emerged of policemen forcing Roma children to strip naked, kiss and beat each other while being held at a police station.

Israel is digging in its heels. Government officials said Wednesday that Israel does not intend to cooperate with the upcoming United Nations investigation into whether Israel and Hamas both committed war crimes during the recent Gaza war.

After the internal investigation into the misconduct of Israeli soldiers in the course of the Gaza assault was closed suspiciously fast, a brief overview of publications by army officials, published months before the start of the war, suggests the reported misconduct was policy and not coincidence.

Reiterated promises of cooperation and respect marked U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Mexico Thursday. But activists and analysts from both countries told IPS that there have been enough words and that it is time for concrete action from Washington.