News headlines in February 2010, page 27

The first attempt to collect a new tax on luxury homes in Costa Rica has ended in failure, in spite of the fact that it is a solidarity tax entirely devoted to building social housing for slum-dwellers.

A 15-volume documentation of 3,000 natural dyes by a 19th century British textile entrepreneur will be the focus of an upcoming international seminar on natural dyes in India.

Major changes are underway in the European Union (EU). For the first time in its history, the 27-country bloc will have a foreign minister once Catherine Ashton, a British Labour politician, receives parliamentary approval for her appointment later this month. She has already taken the first steps towards assembling a diplomatic service as foreseen by the EU’s Lisbon treaty.

Every day, 60-year old Felisa scavenges for garbage around the bustling streets of Manila, the urban capital of the Philippines.

The declaration by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that his country is ready to exchange low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel has been met with a mostly cautious reaction by Western leaders.

The global bank HSBC may be running offshore accounts for central banks. According to a U.S. Senate investigation, an HSBC subsidiary in London called HSBC Equator Bank had a sister bank in the Bahamas.

Human rights organisations in Mexico and the United States sounded the alarm about abuses against women by the Mexican armed forces in the context of the government's all-out offensive against drug trafficking in the border state of Chihuahua.

Women's rights and development activists working in Haiti say that greater attention must be paid to the immediate needs of women and girls, as well their role in the long-term reconstruction of the devastated country.

Six months after Iranian authorities arrested three U.S. citizens who mistakenly crossed the unmarked border between Iran and Iraq, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Iran could be willing to exchange them for Iranians imprisoned in the United States.

The International Criminal Court is to review its earlier decision not to add genocide to the charges against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir.