News headlines in August 2011, page 3

Experts and activists are calling for the reinstatement of the ban on casinos in Mexico, saying they foment not only problem gambling but also links to organised crime. The debate was revived after at least 52 people were killed in a fire set by armed men in the Casino Royale in Monterrey.

Rights activists say that thousands of unmarked graves newly uncovered along the Line of Control (LoC) in Indian Kashmir may hold the bodies of ‘disappeared’ people rather than those of militants killed while trying to cross the fortified de facto border between India and Pakistan.

Amr El-Beheiry’s trial in a military court lasted just five minutes. The 33-year- old Egyptian was arrested on Feb. 26 and sentenced to five years in prison for breaking curfew and assaulting a public official during a demonstration in Cairo.

Loud bursts of cheering startled the throngs of tourists posing for pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower here last weekend.

On the tenth day of a protest wave that has been gaining momentum since Aug. 20 and will continue until Sep. 3, nearly 300 people gathered in Lafayette Park directly across from the White House in Washington D.C., chanting, 'When I say 'tar sands', you say 'no!' When I say 'action', you say 'go!''

A scientific alliance in which developing countries are playing a key role has taken on the challenge of producing paediatric AIDS drugs, an area that is no longer a priority for pharmaceutical companies because mother-to-child transmission of HIV has virtually been eliminated in the industrialised world.

The conviction of three policemen for the February death of high school student Justin Zongo should be another building block in the struggle against impunity in Burkina Faso, say student leaders and human rights defenders.

The indictment of four men linked to Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri made public by the Special Tribunal on Lebanon Aug. 17 is questionable not because it is based on 'circumstantial evidence', but because that evidence is based on a flawed premise.

The boom in exports from South America's Mercosur trade bloc is due not only to commodities sold to China and other large emerging economies, but also to industrial goods bound for other Latin American and Caribbean markets.

The waiter at the coffee shop moves rapidly to the entrance for a quick glance outside. Within, a young Iranian musician has started to play the saxophone. He has five minutes to perform, he cannot risk a raid on the 'guerrilla' location for a little music.