Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
Germany’s Greens celebrate victory in defeat
Sunday’s federal election threw Germany’s Greens into a state of disarray — should they celebrate their best result ever or mourn the fact they failed to prevent a centre-right coalition and languished in fifth place?
“A Victory that is a Defeat”, “Triumph and Bitterness”, “Celebrations despite missing goal,” read newspaper headlines on Monday. (Photo: Kuenast and Trittin, top candidates of the Greens party, arrive on stage after the general election, Sept 27, Reuters/Ralph Orlowski)
The Greens, one of the world’s most successful environmental parties, won more than a tenth of the vote — not bad for a party whose members entered parliament as revolutionary rebels in the 1980s flourishing potted plants and sporting woolly jumpers.
“We feel strengthened in our fight for ecological modernisation, social justice and civil rights by the best result we have ever had,” co-leader Juergen Trittin told hundreds of party faithful on Sunday evening at the Greens headquarters in Berlin.
Peru’s Congress suspends land laws, but is it enough to calm Amazon conflict?
Peru’s Congress hopes to calm protests over President Alan Garcia’s plans to open up the country’s Amazon region to oil and logging by multinational companies but the conflict is far from being resolved.
Peruvian lawmakers temporarily suspended two decrees that triggered deadly protests by indigenous groups opposed to the move.
Sex, drugs and toxic shrubs: the best reads of March
Cubans indulge baseball mania at Havana’s “Hot Corner”
For all the shouting and nose-to-nose confrontations, visitors to Havana’s Parque Central might think they had walked into a brawl or counter-revolution … but here in the park’s Hot Corner, the topic almost always under discussion is baseball, Cuba’s national obsession.
Iraq’s orphans battle to outgrow abuse
At night, Salah Abbas Hisham wakes up screaming. Sometimes, in the dark, he silently attacks the boy next to him in a tiny Baghdad orphanage where 33 boys sleep on cots or on the floor. Salah, who saw both his parents blown apart in a car bomb, can never be left alone at night.
Best reads of February
Exotic animals trapped in net of Mexican drug trade - From the live snakes that smugglers stuff with packets of cocaine to the white tigers drug lords keep as exotic pets, rare animals are being increasingly sucked into Mexico’s deadly narcotics trade.
End of an era for the Amazon’s turbulent priests - They avoid taking buses, make sure friends know their schedules, and rarely go out when it’s dark. For the three foreign-born Roman Catholic bishops under death threat in Brazil’s northeastern state of Para, speaking out against social ills that plague this often-lawless area at the Amazon River’s mouth has come at a price.
Fighter jet deal strains Norway’s ethics drive
Norway sees itself as a champion of ethical investment, applying pressure on corporations in worthy causes ranging from production of indiscriminately lethal weapons to ending child labour and increasing environmental responsibility.
If companies fail to meet its strict standards, they are blacklisted from Norway’s $300 billion oil fund. So far 27 firms have been banned from what many admirers call the most transparent sovereign wealth fund in the world.
