News headlines in May 2010, page 27

The abuse of domestic workers, the majority of whom are women, is still widespread in South Africa despite calls for the government to intensify the implementation of the domestic workers law.

Instead of going nuclear, the Malaysian government should be harnessing alternative energy resources, which are adequate in supply, said the country’s anti-nuclear lobby.

Pope Benedict XVI began a four-day visit to Portugal Tuesday in an uncomfortable scenario for himself and his followers, amidst accusations that the Catholic Church leadership protected pedophile priests, and the free distribution of condoms by hundreds of protesters here.

It has been nearly twenty years since an official execution has taken place in Nigeria. State governors have been unwilling to sign the execution warrants of persons on death row.

Along with an expanded focus on domestic prevention and treatment, the U.S. will make a renewed effort to disrupt the flow of narcotics into its borders and weapons and money out of them, according to the White House's long-anticipated National Drug Control Strategy released Tuesday.

With the right treatment, mother-to-child transmission of congenital syphilis and HIV, the AIDS virus, can be prevented. But every year, thousands of babies are still being born with these diseases in Latin America and the Caribbean.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's return to Tehran after attending the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review meeting at U.N. headquarters has been received with the usual bombast by the conservative and hard-line media in Iran, which declared him victorious and an indispensable global leader.

The government of Ecuador hopes to sign new services contracts with foreign oil firms operating in the country, to replace the 34 contracts currently in effect, by the end of the year.

The longstanding debate between eviction or upgrading of Rio's 'favelas' or slums has gathered new force as this one-time capital of Brazil still shows the hillside scars left by rain-induced landslides in early April.

'Fuera Ecoltec!' (Get out Ecoltec!) protesters chanted in a demonstration Sunday in the Mexican town of Apaxco, one year after the start of a community blockade of a toxic waste processing plant run by a Swiss company.