News headlines in January 2011, page 22

At least 11 more people have been killed in violence over southern Sudan's historic referendum, officials have said.

Staying in Chawama, a compound outside Zambia's capital Lusaka, I spent many an evening chatting to the local women as they sat outside and cooked on their charcoal braziers. It intrigued me how a lot of the gossip would come back to one topic: the importance of 'chinamwali', the traditional initiation training most Zambian women go through before they get married.

The clock is ticking to live up to the promises governments made a decade ago to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people. But are those promises themselves inherently flawed?

While many are sceptical that the Chilean government will deliver on its promise of a shift in indigenous policy, the deadline is looming for the administration of Sebastián Piñera to live up to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommendations with respect to imprisoned members of the Mapuche community.

A new report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) charges that China has largely failed to meet the commitments laid out in its first-ever National Human Rights Action Plan (NHRAP), introduced in 2009.

The strongest La Niña weather system in 50 years has brought historic flooding to Australia and drought to Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, driving up food prices.

Spain's political parties demanded that ETA surrender its weapons and abandon violence for good, in response to a statement issued by the group Monday in which it declared a permanent ceasefire, verifiable by the international community, and called for negotiation.

The Taliban once regarded as true jihadists here are rapidly losing popularity in response to their ongoing targeting of mosques, schools and innocent people. 'It is not surprising that the Taliban’s popularity graph is dwindling. They no longer enjoy the quantum of public support they had at the time of the attack on Afghanistan by U.S.-led forces,' said Jamilur Rehman, a resident of South Waziristan and a student at the University of Peshawar.

Despite the lingering trauma of living under siege, regular Israeli military attacks and the consequences of a bloody war several years ago, Gaza’s children still dream of happiness and of normal lives.

January is indelibly linked to the tumultuous recent history of the media in Sri Lanka. Two years ago, on Jan. 8 Lasantha Manilal Wickrematunge, editor of the The Sunday Leader newspaper, was murdered while on his way to work.