News headlines in February 2010, page 2

As the war over health care continues in Washington and a war of a bloodier nature heats up in Ciudád Juárez and elsewhere in Mexico, top U.S. and Mexican officials are hoping to reduce both pressures on the health system and the ongoing bloodshed.

Back in Najaf, Iraq, Khayzaran and her family lived in a well-kept house. They had two cars and a small orchard. Her children, two girls and three boys, attended school and came home to modest feasts.

The Catholic Church has for decades protected paedophile priests and clerics who sexually abused children from judiciary prosecution, according to German theologians, law experts, and internal church documents.

The Justice Department investigation into whether the authors of the George W. Bush-era 'torture memos' were guilty of professional misconduct did not have full access to the emails used by those lawyers and by other key figures in the investigation, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former counsel to the Vice President David Addington.

Afghan police are widely considered corrupt, unable to shoot straight, and die at twice the rate of Afghan soldiers and NATO troops. After seven billion dollars spent on training and salaries in the last eight years, several U.S. government investigations are asking why.

The U.S. is raising the stakes in its bid to halt Iran's nuclear programme, putting the issue on a 'pressure track', says top U.S. general David Petraeus. The U.S. and other world powers are drumming up support for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran for its refusal to comply with repeated ultimatums to suspend uranium enrichment and to agree to a deal involving UN-backed nuclear fuel.

New details of the arrest of the Jundullah leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, partly corroborate and partly contradict the initial narrative given by Iranian officials for his arrest.

Legal advice stating that European vessels have no justification to fish off Western Sahara - a territory occupied by Morocco - has provoked a row between the main political institutions in Brussels.

Even as they were prepared for the worst, supporters of ousted former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra conducted an eleventh-hour ritual in his home province this week, hoping for a miracle in Friday’s court verdict on the fate of his seized assets.

Israel’s illegal occupation and continued expropriation of Palestinian land in the West Bank has left 2.5 million Palestinians living there with effectively less than 40 percent of the territory.