News headlines in February 2012, page 15

Two Iranians have been arrested and charged with plotting a bomb attack in Bangkok, according to Thailand's foreign minister.

'No one will pay for the damages when work at the mine has finished,' says María del Rosario Velásquez, who lives in a town near the Oasis mine 100 km southeast of the Guatemalan capital.

Syrian troops have shelled the central city of Homs for a 10th day, opposition activists say, amid suggestions by the U.N.'s human rights chief that the U.N. Security Council's failure to pass a resolution condemning Syria has encouraged the government to intensify its attacks on civilians.

Chants erupt from the second floor of a decrepit building in Tripoli in the Sunni stronghold of Bab el-Tebbaneh. Young voices loudly sing 'Yalla Erhal Ya Bashar,' or 'Come on, leave, Bashar,' directed at the Syrian president, Bashar al- Assad. It has become the anthem of the Syrian revolution.

Many people are appalled by the anti-Polish website established recently by the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV). The site encourages complaints against migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe, particularly from Poland. The Poles are hitting back with their own hotlines, and humour.

'Welcome to Krishi (farming) Radio. You are listening to FM 98.8 megahertz and I am your hostess Shahnaz Parvin,' the local community radio crackles over the mobile phones and transistors of residents in coastal Barguna district.

As Somalia’s transitional government and various stakeholders meet Wednesday to discuss the inclusion of the country’s clans in the new government, women politicians have called for a greater role in the leadership of this East African nation.

Seven out of the eight governments in the Sahel — the arid zone between the Sahara desert in North Africa and Sudan’s Savannas in the south — have taken the unprecedented step of declaring emergencies as 12 million people in the region are threatened by hunger.

Despite strong pressure to reduce the yawning federal deficit, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is asking Congress for a slight increase in funding for the State Department and foreign aid next year.

Weather patterns could have an influence on the spread of epidemics like that of the H1N1 influenza virus, initially known as swine flu, which broke out in Mexico and the United States in 2009.