News headlines in June 2010, page 16

In early May, Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, was awarded the American Enterprise Institute's Irving Kristol Award, which is given to individuals who have 'made exceptional intellectual or practical contributions to improved government policy, social welfare, or political understanding'.

Extensive cattle farming in northwestern Paraguay is the leading cause of deforestation in the Gran Chaco, one of the world's leading regions in biodiversity and South America's second largest forested area, after the Amazon.

In the wake of a new U.S. government report on human trafficking, human rights and migrant rights activists are calling on a South-east Asian regional bloc to review its polices toward this scourge to protect the group’s most vulnerable citizens — its women and children.

Asako Nakano, 52, a company employee, invested in a condominium two summers ago, settling the deal with a down payment of around 155,000 U.S. dollars from her savings.

Operation Amani Leo, launched jointly by MONUC (the United Nations Mission in Congo) and FARDC (the Congolese army) in January to regain control of mining territories in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu from rebels, while ensuring security for the local population has been extended to September. But Congolese women are arguing for changes in the conduct of military operations.

Senior medical figures in Eastern Europe have issued stark warnings that the region's healthcare sector is both unstable and unsustainable as health workers continue to leave in droves for jobs abroad.

In a small, dingy and humid room inside a house in Metiabruz, a poor Muslim- dominated locality in Kolkata in eastern India, at least 20 Muslim women, aged 16 to 28, can hardly contain their enthusiasm as they talk about their aspirations and why they decided to study information technology (IT), a short-term course offered for a minimal fee by a non-government organisation operating in their area.

Thirty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War, a joint U.S.-Vietnamese panel endorsed a 10-year, 300-million-dollar 'plan of action' to deal with the deadly health and environmental legacy of the U.S. military's widespread use of 'Agent Orange' during the conflict.

Despite the pleas of some conservative politicians that parallels should not be drawn between the oil spreading over the Gulf of Mexico and the need to transition out of a reliance on fossil fuels, U.S. President Barack Obama made it clear Tuesday night that he sees the race against the spreading oil as inherently connected to the race against a changing climate.

Habtom, a 30-year-old Eritrean, has all the grim qualifications needed to be a refugee. He was arrested for protesting a dictatorship, tortured in custody, and fears his life would be at risk if he returned home. Another part of his story is also typical: he suffered lengthy detention in a European Union nominally committed to the universal defence of human rights.