News headlines in November 2010

Quan Zhenyuan discovered Buddhism by accident. After the owner of a vegetarian restaurant here in the Chinese capital gave her a book about the religion, she became hooked. Today, Quan is one of a growing number of urban Chinese who turn to Buddhism for spiritual fulfillment.

After first resisting the efforts of human rights and legal advocates, the British government has now backed down and placed an immediate ban on the export of lethal injection drugs to be used in U.S. executions.

Some of the nation's leading human rights groups - who are almost always on the same page - are taking widely opposing positions on the latest Wikileaks document dump of diplomatic cables.

'A dark chapter has come to a close in the history of Oaxaca. A chapter that must never again be repeated,' said lawmaker Flavio Sosa, the head of the social movement that brought this southern Mexican state to its knees for several months in 2006 and was brutally repressed.

Close to 400,000 African children are infected with HIV every year - nearly one in five of these infected during birth or shortly thereafter because their mothers lack access to antiretroviral drugs.

Government spokesperson Dr Mohamed Bakari says Tanzania has contained an epidemic of viral disease that had affected the northern part of the country, mainly around Arusha, since the start of the year.

Lucky for Osman Conteh that one of his aunts disagreed with the family consensus that he had been stricken by an evil spirit. She insisted the twitching, incoherently babbling child be taken to the hospital rather than a witch doctor.

The ongoing effort to repeal the policy banning gays and lesbians from openly serving in the U.S. military got more ammunition Tuesday when the U.S. Department of Defence released a report finding that its repeal would cause only minimal short-term disruption to the military.

The United Nations has long been a veritable playground for spooks of all political stripes to spy on each other - going back to the days of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War in the 1960s and '70s.

Who is responsible for stalling reform of the U.N. Security Council? The exclusive club of five nuclear-armed industrialised countries, or those from the developing world who have little say in decision-making on issues of international peace and security?