News headlines in January 2012, page 15

Blame for the shadowy war of attrition against Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programmes usually prompts vigorous U.S. and Israeli denials of involvement, or self-imposed silence. Yet, the two allies risk being hoisted on their own ambiguity petard.

The postponement of a massive joint U.S.-Israeli military exercise appears to be the culmination of a series of events that has impelled the Barack Obama administration to put more distance between the United States and aggressive Israeli policies toward Iran.

China, Brazil and India want seats on the Arctic Council as global warming creates new opportunities for shipping and resource extraction in the vast Arctic region.

Saudi Arabia will make up for any shortfall in world oil supply caused by sanctions against Iran, the country's oil minister has said, despite warnings from Iran that such a move would provoke unspecified 'consequences'.

Two decades after the signing of the Peace Accords, together with the social commitments they contained, El Salvador's levels of poverty and violence are so high that academic and social leaders are proposing new accords to overcome the crisis.

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), has been declared a winner of the Population Institute’s 2011 Annual Global Media Awards for Excellence in Population Reporting. The awards, which are in their 32nd year, honour those who help raise public awareness of the challenges related to population and reproductive health.

Bolstered by Germany’s strong economy, Berlin has become the unofficial capital of the battered European monetary union. However the German government’s proposals to solve the sovereign debt crisis, by imposing severe austerity programmes to reduce state deficits and rejecting the distribution of Eurobonds, are coming up against increasing opposition across most of the 17 countries that comprise the Eurozone.

A school in Slovakia has defended its decision to segregate Roma children from other students after a court ruled the practice breached equal rights laws.

In the eastern city Kolkata, a tourist just back from a holiday in India’s Andaman islands last week boasts he threw bananas to Jarawa tribe members and secretly photographed them when their car passed through a jungle.

The massive overhaul of Hungary’s political system by the conservative Fidesz party is raising fears the country’s days as a liberal democracy may be numbered. With opposition parties powerless, it is civil society that has awakened to support a more participatory democracy.