News headlines in January 2011, page 8

During the summer of 2010 Kashmir saw one of the worst face-offs between pro-freedom Kashmiri youth and law enforcement agencies. Smugglers used the unrest surrounding these outbreaks to conceal their steady ramping up of the black market timber trade, at times with complicity of authorities.

In the first successful prosecution of a Guantanamo detainee handled entirely by civilian courts, a federal judge Tuesday sentenced Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani to life in prison without parole for his role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and injured hundreds of others.

With the U.S. national debt standing at 14 trillion dollars, the Barack Obama administration pledging to tackle the monstrous deficit and a Republican-led House of Representatives pushing for a 'Cut-and-Grow' Congress, budget hawks are zeroing in on international affairs spending - from diplomacy to development.

Seven of the 16 foreign oil companies operating in Ecuador have decided to pull out of the country in disagreement with a reformed oil law that turned the firms into providers of services to which the government will pay a fixed tariff for operating the fields.

Prospects for a negotiated solution of the world's nuclear quarrel with Iran are cloudier in the aftermath of talks in Istanbul that ended without even an agreement to meet again.

The rise in prices of corn, beans and other staple foods, driven up by damages to crops caused by extreme weather events, is making it even harder for the poor to afford a basic diet in Guatemala, which has the highest rate of child malnutrition in Latin America.

The trial of staff at the Havana Psychiatric Hospital for the deaths of 26 patients who died of cold and neglect revealed a dark chapter in an institution that was once a shining symbol of Cuba's much lauded health care system, and drew reactions of shock and criticism.

The appointment of Hezbollah-backed March 8 movement candidate Najib Mikati as Lebanon's new prime minister set off violence in Tripoli and Beirut Tuesday, with mobs attacking journalists and setting fires.

The pro-Israel lobby is seeking to increase its influence among members of Europe’s parliaments by offering them an expenses-paid trip to the Middle East.

Despite repeated warnings by environmental and climate experts that reduction of fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is fundamental to forestalling global warming, disaster appears imminent. According to the latest statistics, unprecedented climate change has Earth hurtling down a path of catastrophic proportions.