News headlines in 2009, page 38

As the global community observes World AIDS Day today, India is caught in a rancorous debate about a government scheme which mandates that all pregnant women in the country be tested for HIV so that its 1.2 billion people can have 'an AIDS-free generation'.

Sixteen-year-old Andela Milambo* wants a husband. She is not looking for love, but for someone to share the burden of living with HIV. She wants to be able to take her medicine without having to hide, to discuss the recurring herpes with someone who understands.

Under a shed made of bamboo and corrugated sheet metal, Purusottam Sur feeds his two bullocks and a cow with a bundle each of dry paddy plant. A fifth of his five-acre paddy harvest will be used only as cattle feed; the rice seeds just did not develop because of untimely rains this monsoon.

Since a federal judge ruled earlier this month that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the devastating 2005 levee breach at the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina, some legal scholars believe that millions — or even billions - could be owed to additional Hurricane Katrina victims.

Iran's announced intention to build 10 new nuclear enrichment plants has been deemed 'unacceptable' by the administration of President Barack Obama, which warned Monday of increased pressure on Tehran if it does not soon accept Western proposals to curb its nuclear programme.

'The press will change when they cease to report exclusively from a masculine point of view,' Peru's deputy Minister for Women, Norma Añaños, told participants at an international seminar for journalists on 'Women at Work, Women as Leaders', held in the Peruvian capital.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in Washington, DC's Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, about 50 protestors lined up outside a polling station where voting was taking place to help select the next leader of a country almost 3,000 kilometres away.

'It was like writing my first exam. I was nervous and didn’t want to make a mistake. I must have checked the ballot 10 times.'

Porfirio Lobo, the presidential candidate of the right-wing National Party, won the elections Sunday in Honduras that were backed by the de facto government in power since the Jun. 28 coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya.

Countries from the South are assuming leading roles in decisions on global issues ranging from economic recovery to food security, climate change and HIV/AIDS.