News headlines in January 2010

No sooner does a visitor step into the facility than a surreal scene unfolds: The sound of laughter, the sight of ready smiles and vigorous, pumping handshakes mix with the acrid odor of an unwashed human body and the unbearable stench of neglect that in turn combines with the heavy smell of medicine.

One of the greatest challenges facing the world today is to attend to the urgent social needs of the planet’s population, and particularly the one billion people living 'on the brink of survival', while dealing with the equally urgent demands of the environment.

A historic ruling earlier this month on behalf of felons who lost the right to vote could call into question the disenfranchisement of felons and ex-felons in the State of Washington and indeed across the United States.

A report exposing the spreading opium fields in the north-eastern corner of the military-ruled Burma has brought to light an equally revealing story. It was produced by a team of ethnic women who risked their lives to document the heroin-filled world they inhabit.

When Michalis Chrisohoidis, Greek minister of citizens' announed that FRONTEX, the European Agency for Border Control and Protection, would double its representation in this country in spring, it was clear that Greece is being charged with special responsibilities to apprehend and repatriate illegal migrants into Europe.

'Society and Governments: debates and alternatives for a post-crisis world' is the name of a Thematic World Social Forum meeting being held in the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia.

A 45-million-dollar programme funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that has been in place for nearly two years in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has failed to develop local government agencies to ensure delivery of basic services, according to an audit by USAID's inspector general.

The road to the world’s first tiger summit in Vladivostok later this year will have to be paved with answers about the future of tiger farms in China and other East Asian countries, said conservationists.

Cuba, which has major reserves of zeolite, aims to boost exploitation of the mineral, whose properties and uses in products and technologies contribute to protecting the environment.

The World Social Forum (WSF) 'changed our lives,' although it continues to be 'machista,' with men significantly outnumbering women in its organisation and almost all discussion panels, commented Nalu Farias, coordinator in Brazil of the World March of Women.