News headlines in June 2010, page 5

A proposed anti-counterfeit trade deal between 10 countries and the European Union (EU) could create 'a new set of barriers to the export of generic medicines to low income countries'.

Ismail Achar never thought a day would come when his island village would be reduced to a barren tract of land with hardly a drop of water to drink.

Buy a hairpin and the sales clerk has a microscopic plastic bag for it. A soda purchase from a corner store may end up having the liquid poured into a plastic bag, and then topped off with a plastic straw. There is no plastic bag yet that could fit a car, but if there was one country that could come up with one, Thailand would probably be it.

The 2010 U.S. Social Forum ended Saturday in Detroit, a city viewed by many as a metaphor for the excesses of U.S. capitalism, with strong parting words from Pablo Solon, Bolivia's permanent representative to the United Nations.

While the Brazilian authorities tally the death toll and the economic losses caused by recent torrential rains in the northeast, activists warn that a legislative bill to modify the Forestry Code will only worsen the effects of extreme weather, which is increasingly frequent in the context of climate change.

The teacher seats the most attentive girls in the front row and the troublesome boys at the back of the classroom. He punishes the liveliest pupil and lets the withdrawn one be. Dark-skinned boys sit with dark-skinned girls, boys play with boys and girls with girls.

Ahead of a week-long meeting on gender equality starting Monday at the United Nations, women's rights activists have been pushing for concrete progress on a pledge made last September by the world body to create a new, better-funded U.N. agency for women.

The G8 bloc of wealthy nations promised five billion dollars Saturday for health and nutrition programmes that benefit women and children in developing countries.

The biodiversity of Capiro Calentura National Park, on the northern coast of Honduras, could disappear as a result of tourism, agricultural expansion and drug trafficking.

Against a backdrop of rising expectations that it holds the key to global economic recovery, China has sent a subtle signal that its economic health is frail and that external pressure to revalue its currency will cause more damage than good.