News headlines in February 2010, page 26

Three weeks after Haiti's devastating earthquake, nearly 100 U.S. lawmakers joined with key civil society groups here Thursday to urge the Group of Seven (G7) leading western nations to commit to cancelling all of the Caribbean country's multilateral debt.

The U.S. House and Senate introduced new legislation Thursday that addresses the plight of women around the world who are victims of violence.

Against the backdrop of continued widespread gender discrimination worldwide, the European Union (EU) has urged Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to 'urgently' speed up the creation of the proposed new U.N. agency for women.

A leading international rights group urged the Colombian government to take action against what it called the 'successors' to the far-right paramilitary militias, which continue attacking civilians and human rights defenders.

HIV-positive Justine Kirumira* is a mother torn between doing what is right for her daughters and her own fear of HIV/AIDS. She suspects that her eight- and 12-year-old daughters may also have the virus. But she may never know the truth of their status because she refuses have them tested.

Gazans hoping for a modicum of justice following Israel’s indiscriminate military assault on the coastal territory during December 2008 and January 2009 - which left 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, dead - could be waiting in vain.

A little-known programme run by the Department of Homeland Security is using inaccurate databases and functioning 'as little more than a dragnet to funnel even more people into the already overburdened' detention and deportation system of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Delivering his State of the Union address before both houses of Congress and a global audience on Jan. 27, U.S. President Barack Obama asked for passage of 'a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.'

A diesel-fueled power plant, nearing completion just outside Kabul, demonstrates that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its contractors have failed to learn lessons from identical mistakes in Iraq, despite clearly signposted advice from oversight agencies.

A stalemate between labour unions and business associations is preventing Egyptian authorities from setting a minimum wage that could improve the lot of millions of citizens living in poverty.