News headlines in April 2010, page 5

A modest protest gathered outside the Permanent Mission of Brazil in New York on Wednesday to oppose the controversial Belo Monte dam project in Brazil.

Military troops and extra police are being deployed in northern Paraguay after a state of emergency was declared to crack down on an armed rebel group that calls itself the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP).

Wednesday's highly unusual public launch of a 'conference committee' of both houses of Congress to hash out differences in long-pending legislation to impose unilateral sanctions on Iran marks a new stage in the escalating debate over what to do about Tehran's nuclear programme.

People's access to electricity, especially modern electricity, must increase even as greenhouse gases are reduced, according to a report issued Wednesday by the U.N. Secretary-General's Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change.

The most powerful political body at the United Nations took a heavy beating last week as member states accused the Security Council of being arrogant, secretive, undemocratic - and in danger of becoming 'irrelevant' and 'illegitimate' in the eyes of the world.

Iceland's volcanoes contributed to conditions that may have hastened the French Revolution, and could now speed changes in air transport, which not only is vulnerable to natural disasters but is suffering from heavy congestion of its routes in Europe.

Critics of Arizona's new immigration law, which requires police to question people they suspect to be undocumented immigrants, say 'reasonable suspicion' boils down to having brown skin and looking Latino.

A protest of more than 90,000 Okinawans Sunday over the proposed relocation of a U.S. Marine Corps airbase in the southern Japanese prefecture has fueled speculation in Washington that the U.S.-Japanese alliance may be facing a serious test with the election of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), and that such strains might have serious implications for the U.S.'s ability to balance Chinese naval power in East Asia.

Three civil rights organisations are suing the U.S. government to obtain records related to a little-known programme known as 'Secure Communities' that further involves local and state police in federal immigration enforcement.

Fatal accidents at coalmines, like the recent tragedies in China and the United States, cause great public alarm. But U.S. physician Alan Lockwood warns that many more deaths are caused by the pollution that comes from the use of coal as an energy source.