News headlines in June 2010, page 33

South Africa, where the FIFA Football World Cup is to kick off Jun. 11, has introduced cleaner transportation, while Brazil is planning ecological stadiums for the championship it will host in 2014. But these and other initiatives clash with the countries' overall environmental performance.

The dispute between Hamas and Fatah has torn apart the people of Palestine, dividing and distracting them from their common quest for freedom and independence from Israeli military rule.

Legal experts and civil libertarians are attacking the administration of President Barack Obama for resusiscitating what they regard as 'deeply flawed' military commissions to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay - and their choice of a 'child soldier' as the first defendant.

As India mourns for the victims of one of its worst rail accidents that occurred on Friday in eastern state West Bengal, the political class is divided on whether the Maoist rebels were behind the incident that left 148 civilians dead.

A clumsy and failed attempt by Japan’s nine-month-old coalition government to change the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, a post World War II landmark in bilateral relations after the Japanese defeat and often referred to as the lynchpin in Asian regional defence, has shaken domestic politics and fueled East Asian anxiety.

The governments of Latin America and the Caribbean asked ECLAC Tuesday to come up with a new set of criteria so middle-income countries are not excluded from official development assistance. They also called for greater South-South cooperation.

Amid nearly universal condemnation of Monday's pre-dawn Israeli assault in international waters on a flotilla carrying humanitarian and reconstruction aid bound for Gaza, the administration of President Barack Obama has steadfastly avoided assigning blame.

A landmark court case, alleging that HIV-positive women were forcibly sterilised in Namibian state hospitals begins in Windhoek's High Court on Jun. 1. Human rights groups claim the practice has continued long after the authorities were notified.

A new U.S. government report is recommending that 48 men currently detained at Guantanamo Bay should be held indefinitely without trial because 'for many of the detainees, there are no witnesses who are available to testify in any proceeding against them'.

Israel's lethal confrontation with pro-Palestinian activists in the Mediterranean is complicating U.S. strategy toward Iran and undermining the likelihood of a solid sanctions victory at the United Nations.