News headlines in May 2010, page 4

They fight against a crazy world, armed only with dramatic improvisation. A programme of urban inverventions from a university in Río de Janeiro is battling 'the mad world' based on the archetype of the anti-hero.

Nepal’s three major political parties inked a compromise deal Friday, an hour before the expiry of the Constituent Assembly’s (CA’s) tenure, and voted in favor of a bill proposing extension of its term by a year, thus saving the country’s four-year-old peace process from breaking down.

After months of turmoil, silence — albeit an uneasy one — has finally fallen over the streets of Bangkok. But the shouting continues in cyberspace as Thais and even foreign residents bicker and debate over what this South-east Asian country has just experienced, as well as about the challenges it continues to face.

Despite a federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling, new permits and controversial environmental waivers for oil rigs continue to be granted, sparking criticism from policymakers and environmentalists.

A new desalination facility has come up here on Israel's Mediterranean seashore, to soothe Israel's chronic fresh water shortage. An elaborate network of pipes beneath the beach reaches westward far into the sea. Eastward, it links up with the national water system.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) came into existence in the right place, the United Nations, but at a most unpropitious time, in September 2000, when ideas about the invincibility of market forces still held sway in the world.

A wide range of strategies are being followed in the southeastern Uruguayan province of Rocha to counteract the environmental damages of activities like soy cultivation, plantation forestry and tourism. But challenges abound.

Not the leftists, not the social democrats, not the greens. Ideological differences aside, the three leading candidates for the Brazilian presidency are singing the same tune on the economy: no surprises, no market shake-ups.

Consumer organisations and experts say the Mexican government's plan to remove junk food from schools is a step in the right direction in the fight against obesity in this country, which has the highest rate of childhood obesity in the world, and the second highest rate for adults, after the United States.

Two small boys play quietly on a jungle gym, some distance away from other children. The six-year-old twins, who live at the Masigcine children's centre in Mfuleni township, 35 kilometres out of Cape Town, are severely traumatised from being orphaned at the age of one and have difficulty relating to their peers.