News headlines in April 2011, page 5

Recently, I joined some of our nation's heroes walking the trail of the civil rights movement in Alabama. No one has done more to stop hate groups in the United States over the past three decades than Morris Dees through the Southern Poverty Law Center. Morris pioneered the strategy of holding hate groups accountable through civil suits awarding damages so expensive that the defendants are forced into bankruptcy and closed. Over thirty people have gone to prison for plots to assassinate him, writes Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Center for Justice and Human Rights and Honorary Chair, RFK Foundation of Europe, Onlus.

Children are increasingly facing frontline risks at Yemen’s anti-government protests. Parents are bringing them to demonstrations in the belief that they too are necessary for sacrifices in the revolution against President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan and the 25th anniversary of the catastrophe in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine have thrown into relief contradictions in the role played by the World Health Organisation, which civil society organisations have spent years pointing out.

The popular uprisings that have brought turmoil to Arab countries across the Middle East and North Africa have also underscored Washington's dearth of knowledge about forces on the ground in authoritarian states in the Middle East. One of the largest questions bedeviling policy makers has been the composition of various emerging opposition movements.

The official Yemeni opposition group, the Joint Meetings Party (JMP), has announced it will sign a deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Wednesday which will officially transfer President Ali Abdullah Saleh's powers, temporarily, to his vice president Abd al-Rab Mansur al Hadi.

Starting in late 2005, U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan began turning detainees over to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), despite its well-known reputation for torture.

It wasn't easy to get to the Bolivian city of Riberalta from Brazil. The adventurous journey included potholes on the Brazilian highway, a rickety boat that ferried us across the Mamoré - the border river - and an unnerving ride on a motorcycle taxi. But the biggest complication was the roadblocks.

Quite a treat Britain has on offer for the world these days. Or who would ever have been talking - in this day and age - about a prince and princess riding in splendour into a world of pageboys and palaces.

This month, Connecticut became the latest in a growing line of U.S. states to move toward ending capital punishment.

Two weeks after an attack by Iraqi security forces against Camp Ashraf, a base for Iranian exiles, killed 34 people and left over 300 injured, international and humanitarian law experts have urged the U.N. to conduct an impartial investigation regarding the role of Prime Minister Nouri Al- Maliki, as well as Iran and the United States, in the massacre.