News headlines in August 2011, page 19

A coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is accusing the U.N. Secretariat of 'sabotaging' an upcoming high-level meeting on racism by upstaging it with a nuclear security summit scheduled for the same day.

In a country where the going rate for a contract killing is around Thai baht 15,000 (500 dollars), the price paid to eliminate Thongnak Sawekchinda, an environmental activist, has caught the police by surprise.

A new report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) describes a pattern of attacks on medical staff that the group says is undermining the safe delivery of medical assistance and health care across the globe.

Indigenous people in the eastern lowlands of Bolivia are again preparing to make the long march to La Paz, 21 years after their first such protest. They have vowed to make the trek in defence of their lands, which they say are threatened by plans for a highway to be built with the backing of the Brazilian government.

It's a weekday morning, the beach is yet to fill with crowds seeking a break from the heat, but already the odd-jobbers are at work selling toys, clothes and food along the coast.

Access to education for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is getting worse as international organisations remain unwilling or unable to intervene. Secondary- school students here completed their exams in June, and received their results by end of July. However, the 1,800 Palestinian prisoners who were supposed to complete their exams were not permitted to do so by the Israeli Prison Service.

As unemployed young rioters rage across London and frustrated homeless people in Holon burn tires on the streets of Israel, the great capitalist democracy across the Atlantic is also feeling repercussions from its own floundering economy.

Years ago, at the height of the Cold War on 26 June 1963 President John F. Kennedy famously proclaimed in Berlin, 'Ich bin ein Berliner' identifying himself with the beleaguered city where a wall had just been erected isolating West Berlin and its citizens. Years later, from July 1-4 2011, over 330 Pugwashites from about 43 countries converted themselves to being Berliners striving to break down the walls among and around them.

As unemployed young rioters rage across London and frustrated homeless people in Holon burn tires on the streets of Israel, the great capitalist democracy across the Atlantic is also feeling repercussions from its own floundering economy.

Mangrove forests in silt-laden intertidal coastal ecosystems provide a natural habitat for countless marine species, as well as livelihoods for thousands of families in Latin America and the Caribbean. But mangrove swamps are shrinking year by year, besieged by aquaculture, especially shrimp farming, environmentalists warn.