News headlines in March 2010, page 7

Most of these women had never known what it is to have the dollar a day everyone speaks of. And last year, they were seen as good enough between them to be lent a billion and a half dollars.

Better known for its hurricanes, the region that extends from the Cayman Islands in the west to the chain of Windward and Leeward Islands in the east is home to one of the earth's principal seismic belts.

Mexico has failed to make significant progress on human rights issues like violence against women, abuses by military troops involved in policing work, and attacks on journalists, the United Nations Human Rights Committee stated Friday.

The Central American Parliament (Parlacen) has been caught up in the political confrontation in Honduras between Manuel Zelaya, the president who was ousted on Jun. 28, and the leader of the coup government, Roberto Micheletti, because the regional body is having a hard time deciding which of the two it should accept as a member.

As details emerge about the backroom politics and contentious votes that led to the failure to protect any of the several marine species up for international protection at a key conference the past two weeks, conservation advocates are looking ahead to influence regional, local and even individual choices in the next round of battles to save the threatened species.

Basic services that are collapsing or non-existent, overcrowding, pollution: these are big-city problems that are compounded in developing countries by poverty and inequality.

When U.S. President Barack Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize last fall he said, 'I'm working with [Russian] President [Dmitri] Medvedev to reduce America and Russia's nuclear stockpiles.' Three and a half months later, that work has come to fruition.

'The time will come when 80 percent of the raw material used by industry in Uruguay will be recycled waste products,' Marcelo Conde, a 40-year-old garbage sorter who has been digging through trash for recyclables 'for as long as I can remember,' says with some pride.

There was a time when Israel was held in contempt by its neighbours for its over-liberal ways. They felt it did not 'belong' in the Middle East.

'Your president is willing to confront the wildest hordes of opponents, but not a football fan, ever,' Argentine President Cristina Fernández once joked.