News headlines in July 2011, page 25

As the world watches the "Arab Spring" unfold in the Middle East -a reaction against decades of oppression and suppression of civil society- there are disturbing signs that Israel is stealthily moving to dismantle some key civil rights and quiet the voices calling for justice and equality for the Palestinians, write Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines and Rachel Giora of the Coalition of Women for Peace, based in Tel Aviv.

Local women's voices have begun to be heard over a community radio station now broadcasting in Complexo do Alemao, a clump of favelas or shantytowns on the north side of this Brazilian city that were ruled until recently by armed drug gangs.

Fear is growing among environmental and indigenous organisations in Chile over the possible appropriation of native seeds by foreign companies, opening the doors to transgenic crops and their negative impact on biodiversity.

Senior officials under the former George W. Bush administration knowingly authorised the torture of terrorism suspects held under United States custody, a Human Right Watch (HRW) report released here Tuesday revealed.

The head of the United Nations refugee agency has described the situation in drought-hit Somalia as the 'worst humanitarian disaster' in the world, after meeting with those affected at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is alarmed about the situation in the Horn of Africa, where a 'devastating drought' has forced people to abandon their houses and become refugees, the Under-Secretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, told reporters Monday, following a visit to Nigeria and Ethiopia.

Only two in every five people in the Southern African Development Community has access to safe water for drinking and household use. Three quarters of those lacking access, live in rural areas and the majority of these are women and children.

Widespread strikes across Palestinian civil society could be in store for East Jerusalem at the start of the next school year, as the municipality moves ahead with its current plan to implement an Israeli curriculum in Palestinian schools.

When Sujatha’s husband learned that she had conceived just five months after they got married, he became agitated over what he called her 'ill-timed pregnancy'. To worsen her husband’s anxiety, a test to determine the sex of the foetus showed she was carrying a girl.

In a matter of minutes on Mar. 11, 33-year-old Hiroshi Yoshida became a widower and a single father, as the massive tsunami swept over his home in Rikuzentakata in northern Japan and took away his wife and younger son.