News headlines in December 2008, page 6

This time, more than in years before, Christmas is so much more about Santa Claus than about Jesus Christ. Santa has after all, the power to move markets in ways that poor Jesus never contemplated.

A column of Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas operating in the northeastern coca-growing valleys of the Upper Huallaga river in Peru appears to be carrying out attacks in pursuit of a peace agreement, to include an amnesty and the restoration of the rights of those who took up arms in 1980.

Dark clouds are forming against freedom of expression in Kenya, following the recent passing of a controversial Bill by parliament. The Kenya Communications (Amendment) Bill, awaiting presidential assent to become law, gives the state powers to invade media houses, seize broadcast equipment, control broadcast content, even taking a station off air.

With electronic items high on Christmas shopping lists, a new report is calling on the government to ensure that manufacturers collect and recycle unwanted computers and mobile phones to protect environmental and human health.

After nearly a decade of defiance by Washington toward international efforts to protect the environment, notably its disengagement from the Kyoto treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions, there are high hopes that the United States will soon play a leading role in addressing what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has described as 'the defining challenge of our era'.

Chile’s socialist President Michelle Bachelet recently laid the foundation stone for the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, thus coming one step closer to carrying out one of the projects she has put a priority on, which has however given rise to criticism and reservations from both ends of the political spectrum.

Angola’s vast, confusing party landscape is about to undergo a major transformation: as of January, 22 parties and coalitions will simply vanish from the political map.

It seems as if the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been dissected from every possible angle.

A ruling by Peru’s Constitutional Court that makes it impossible to bring the case of a 1986 massacre of 118 prisoners to trial will be taken to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

After debating whether it was wise for the Republican administration to let the U.S. automotive industry collapse under its watch, Pres. George W. Bush, who leaves office next January with a battered legacy marked by an unpopular war in Iraq that has consumed billions of tax dollars and an economic meltdown at home, finally came to the aid of General Motors and Chrysler with a 17.4-billion-dollar rescue package.