News headlines in March 2010, page 15

The families of two prisoners who died at the U.S. Navy Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are asking a federal court to reconsider its ruling dismissing their lawsuit, which seeks to hold federal officials and the U.S. government accountable for their sons' torture, arbitrary detention, and ultimate deaths.

This week, acting Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan dissolved his cabinet, further securing his tenuous hold on the country's top post amidst rising unrest in the Niger Delta and flaring religious tensions in the central region of the country.

This time last year, United States federal legislation on climate change was starting to take shape, seemingly more pressing matters were taking up the bulk of U.S. policymakers' time, and a major climate conference was looming at the end of the year.

At the age of 17, Meybelin Bernárdez is clear about the future: 'When I finish my studies, I'll return to help my community get on its feet,' the young Garifuna woman from Honduras, who is studying medicine in Cuba, says without hesitation.

Naomi Mulenga is determined to beat the odds by finishing her school education and becoming a nurse — despite being a teenage mother.

A week after torrential rains and floods claimed lives in Kenya’s North Rift region, hundreds of displaced people are now in dire need of relief aid.

Iran's 347-billion-dollar budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year, finally approved by the Guardian Council in Tehran Tuesday - just days before its scheduled implementation on the Iranian New Year Mar. 21 - appears likely to add to the tensions and uncertainty that have bedeviled the country since the disputed June 2009 elections.

The Sri Lankan government continues to challenge U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's right to appoint a panel of experts to advise him on the human rights situation - euphemistically called 'accountability issues' — following the end of a protracted conflict against a secessionist insurgency widely considered a terrorist organisation.

The increase in kidnappings of Central American migrants crossing Mexico on their way to the United States will be brought up at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) current session next Monday.

Despite numerous factors that threaten the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 - a global financial crisis, a food crisis, climate change, natural disasters — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said this week that his main concern is 'political will'.