News headlines in June 2010, page 15

Israel’s easing of its land blockade of Gaza is unlikely to lessen international pressure for a change in its policies towards the Palestinians. Nor can Israel be expected to give up its battle to undermine Hamas’ control of the Gaza Strip.

Wang Yibing had been married three years before she found out her husband was gay. He had known all along, yet, like many homosexual men in China, had chosen to enter into a traditional marriage to reduce the pressure he was feeling from his family and society.

Eshwarappa Banakar has been a farmer most of his adult life, but these days he has also turned banker — banker of seeds, that is, and especially of millet strains.

An energy deal that Peru and Brazil signed this week in the Amazon city of Manaus in Brazil is opposed by environmentalists and local indigenous communities in Peru where the planned hydroelectric dams will be built. What is at stake?

After an economic assessment of some 50 countries, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) has come up with a 'concrete action agenda' to accelerate progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Guillermo Zuloaga, owner of the Globovisión television channel has fled Venezuela to avoid an arrest warrant issued by a court a week after President Hugo Chávez complained that Zuloaga was not being held in prison pending trials for illegal business practices, and for remarks that were deemed 'offensive' to the president.

While U.S. President Barack Obama has largely retained huge popularity among most of the world's publics, disillusionment with his leadership appears to have set in throughout much of the Islamic world, according to the latest annual survey of global public opinion by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre released here Thursday.

Fifty pairs of women -- maids and their employers -- from Argentina, Chile and Colombia abandoned their daily routines to pose for photographs for a project about the hierarchical relationship that unites them.

By 5:00 AM, dozens of women are already lined up outside of this clinic in the Mexican capital. Most come with their mothers, sisters, husbands, friends or boyfriends. A few show up alone.

Individuals and armed groups that are considered repeat offenders in the recruitment and use of child soldiers may soon be subject to United Nations sanctions.