News headlines in October 2010, page 2

As if being sentenced to death is not enough punishment, those on death row in Pakistan are also among those being singled out for abuse by jail personnel.

It is safe to say that the candidates running in Florida for the Nov. 2 congressional elections do not have a campaign stop planned for Tallevast. Residents there believe that they have been abandoned by the government.

Central and Eastern Europe is facing 'significant challenges' in combating a multi-billion euro, and often lethal, trade in fake medicines, security and pharmaceutical groups have warned. The region has been identified as a key smuggling route in an illicit trade which is growing every year.

A construction project in Kingston's protected Palisadoes wetlands is pitting Jamaican environmentalists against the government in a showdown activists say will end up in the courts.

A coalition of civil society groups marched to South Africa's Parliament on Oct. 27 to protest against the draft version of a new Protection of Information Bill. 'This bill is a betrayal of all the democratic principles we fought for,' anti-apartheid stalwart Kader Asmal told the crowd.

For the 19th consecutive year, the General Assembly Tuesday adopted a resolution calling for the lifting of the decades-old economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba in the aftermath of the Cold War. The 192-member United Nations body voiced concern about the 'adverse effects' of such measures on the Cuban people and on Cuban nationals living in other countries in the non-binding resolution.

According to Manfred Nowak, the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the international community is currently living through a 'global prison crisis' In his sixth and final report to the General Assembly, Nowak noted with outrage the high incidence of torture still plaguing virtually every member state of the United Nations.

Alarming figures with regard to the safety of practicing journalism around the world were highlighted here during a panel discussion Monday.

One of Japan's closest allies declared over the weekend that all of its oceans - more than 600,000 square kilometres - would be a sanctuary for whales, dolphins, dugongs, sharks and other species. 'There will be no hunting or harassment of marine mammals and other species in our waters,' said the Honourable Harry Fritz, minister of the environment, natural resources and tourism of the Republic of Palau.

Inadequate access to water, recurring floods and droughts as well as a lack of political will to invest in small-scale agriculture perpetuate hunger across Africa, the continent's food security experts say. They were responding to the 2010 Global Hunger Index (GHI), published in mid-October, which shows that 29 countries in the world have hunger levels that are considered alarming or worse. Twenty-two of these - more than two thirds - are located in sub-Saharan Africa.