News headlines in June 2010, page 17

Relations between Bolivia and the United States are still on a roller-coaster, two years after Bolivia expelled the U.S. ambassador, with Bolivian President Evo Morales now threatening to kick out the main U.S. government aid agency.

While the Mexican government defends the use of the military in its counter-drug offensive, human rights organisations report that the use of torture against local police officers and others arrested in the war on drugs has become routine.

A mutual inspection system, like the one Argentina and Brazil have developed for the nuclear industry, could contribute to solving the conflict between Argentina and Uruguay over pulp mills on border rivers.

Should private contractors like Blackwater be allowed to continue to provide armed security for convoys, diplomatic and other personnel, and military bases and other facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq? A bipartisan U.S. Congressional commission will spend two days cross-examining 14 witnesses from academia, government and the companies themselves to come up with an answer.

Long known as 'the football nation,' Brazil today is seeking a new title: recognition as a global economic and political power -- though without denying the sport that made it famous.

The residents of Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth), the second largest of the Cuban archipelago, know a lot about hurricanes, but it wasn't enough to avoid the destructive power of Hurricane Gustav two years ago.

On a spring day in the Gulf of Mexico, a pipe issuing from the sea floor ruptured, sending an explosion rippling up to the drilling platform above and spewing oil into the surrounding waters. Experts scrambled to seal off the ever-increasing mass of oil by capping the pipe, clogging it or covering it. Nothing worked.

What do the protests in Burma, bombings in Jakarta, the recent earthquake in Haiti and the massive devastation left by typhoon Ketsana in the Philippines have in common?

Modern German justice had never handled a case of piracy until Jun 11, when 10 Somali seafarers, including children, were presented at a tribunal in the city port of Hamburg, some 300 km west from Berlin, on charges of robbing cargo in the Indian Ocean.

'Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that,' former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once said. Uncomfortably close to a bald statement of fact for fans of the beautiful game in Somalia, who risk their lives to watch the World Cup unfolding in South Africa.