News headlines in July 2011, page 14

Cuba may be the only country in the world whose citizens have, for half a century now, not been allowed to freely acquire a car or a home. Indeed the very words have a very different connotation on the island, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into more than fifteen languages.

If you use the internet, you will have come across CAPTCHA, a test to determine whether the computer user is human or a machine. What you may not know is that one of its inventors, mathematician Luis von Ahn, comes from one of the poorest countries in Latin America, Guatemala.

Tens of thousands of starving Somalis have made their way to the government- held part of Mogadishu in search of food, but many parents have made the anguished decision to leave a child too weak to make the journey behind in hope of saving the others.

The most pressing global challenge to children's rights may be the increasing number of military attacks on schools in war zones, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday.

The United Nations Monday commemorated the second annual Nelson Mandela International day, a day marking not only the birthdate of the former South African president, but also to recognize his work as a freedom fighter and peacemaker.

The United Nations Monday commemorated the second annual Nelson Mandela International day, a day marking not only the birthdate of the former South African president, but also to recognize his work as a freedom fighter and peacemaker.

In the midst of heated debate with agribusiness, the Bolivian government has launched an agricultural production model aimed at boosting food sovereignty by supporting small farmers, in order to generate surpluses to cushion the swings in international food prices.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Tuesday appealed to the international community to maintain resources for the Aid for Trade programme, especially those assigned to the least developed countries LDCs). He made his plea in a speech relating to the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade.

Growing concerns about the slow death of the dollar rather than a saviour’s goodwill are underpinning China’s widely publicised purchases of European government debt, according to experts. But as the Eurozone debt crisis spreads from Greece and Portugal to countries like Italy and threatens the very survival of the euro, China’s finance mandarins and keepers of the country’s 3 trillion dollars foreign reserves are looking yet again at gold as the anchor of stability.

Monthly ‘visiting hours’ at the female ward of Sri Lanka’s notorious Welikada Prison are as traumatic for the inmates as they are for their family and friends. A tiny room, measuring 10 feet by seven feet, is divided in half by a mesh counter. On one side, mothers, fathers, children and relatives jostle for standing room. On the other the inmates, in white prison clothes, shout to be heard over the din.