News headlines in January 2012, page 10

The Czech government has defied calls from international human rights groups to stop the 'degrading' practice of surgically castrating sex offenders.

An elderly Palestinian woman spent last week on hunger strike to protest violent attacks by Israeli settlers. Hana Abu Heikel went on the hunger strike on behalf of her family after settlers burned the family car during the previous weekend. Since Israeli settlers moved into the houses surrounding the Abu Heikel family home in Hebron in 1984, the Abu Heikels have seen eight cars burned. Six vehicles were also smashed by settlers.

In most mainstream media the words 'corruption' and 'election fraud' accompany images of makeshift polling stations manned by armed guards in Burma or burning tires beside tattered ballot boxes in South Sudan — the insidiousness of stolen elections and a crumbling democracy is very seldom associated with the United States.

Occupy activists from Wall Street to San Francisco's financial district have dramatised their anger with big financial institutions by blocking JP Morgan Chase Bank doorways, dancing atop Wells Fargo counters, pitching a tent in a Bank of America lobby, hanging banners across Citibank windows, and accompanying the actions with the now-familiar chant 'Banks got bailed out, we got sold out.'

Even a year after Rani, a three-year-old tribal girl in the backward Wayanad district of southern Kerala state, was treated in a government hospital for gastroenteritis she remains grossly underweight and suffers from frequent bouts of diarrhoea.

The Russian opposition movement which has risen to prominence since the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections has not said its last word, says 35-year-old Sergey Udaltsov, one of its most visible figures.

Amateurism, high prices, mismanagement, and a limited product range have discouraged Inderjeet Rajcoomarsingh, the former chairman of the Mauritius Agricultural Cooperative Federation, from shopping at cooperative stores.

Following a surprise meeting between President Porfirio Lobo and U.S. government officials, Honduran lawmakers voted to amend the constitution to allow extradition of its nationals.

The United Nations, which commemorated the birth of the world's seven billionth baby last October, is predicting the arrival of the one billionth tourist later this year - perhaps in Europe, the United States, South America or Asia.

Shortly before midnight last Saturday, Alexander, a 24-year-old law student, stepped out of his small apartment in Hamburg and set off for a jaunt around the local supermarkets to pilfer their garbage containers.