News headlines in December 2008, page 3

"Without coffee there is no future," say coffee growers in the Selva Alta, in the central Peruvian region of Junín, where they are setting up schools near their farms so that their children don't abandon their studies.

As the Pakistani government digs its heels in against India’s demands for action on the suspected masterminds of the November terrorist strikes in Mumbai, the Indian foreign policy establishment is looking to China rather than the United States for support.

The gap between the Rudd government’s rhetoric and practice in addressing climate change, albeit with one eye on the worsening global financial conditions, has led to a palpable feeling of betrayal among Australians.

Israel’s massive three-day aerial assault on Gaza is likely to complicate President-elect Barack Obama’s hopes of aggressively pursuing Israeli- Palestinian peace negotiations, and risk inflicting greater damage to Washington’s standing in the Arab world, according to most analysts here.

Members of the military and one police officer who sat on military tribunals and covered up for alleged human rights violators during the authoritarian regime of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) have been reappointed as military judges by Peruvian President Alan García.

After an emergency closed-door session Sunday night, the 15-member Security Council issued a politically bland statement expressing 'serious concern' over the devastating Israeli air strikes on Gaza and calling for an 'immediate halt to all violence.'

The world’s most inexpensive gasoline is sold in Venezuela, through a longstanding subsidy programme that benefits car owners while depriving the oil industry of a large source of funds for reinvesting.

Until late August, Harry Niccolaides was just one of thousands of foreigners working in Thailand as English teachers. But now the 41-year-old Australian national is behind bars, charged with violating this kingdom’s draconian lese majeste laws.

The alarm bell is ringing in Central Europe: as the region braces itself for an economic crisis, extremism grows and gains popular sympathy by targeting the Roma.

When Kunda Dixit, editor of the ‘Nepali Times’ and 12 other staff members of the Himalmedia publishing house were attacked and injured by supporters of Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), a week ago, it was a sign that Nepal’s ruling party intends to influence the media through intimidation.