News headlines in 2008, page 15

Prateep Ungsongtham recalls a vastly different mood a decade ago when she tested the political pulse of the urban poor living in Klong Toey, Bangkok’s largest slum.

Cambodia could be the latest Asian country to adopt tighter laws governing the activities of local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) -- a move many believe will put further pressure on the country’s already fragile democratic space.

While NATO and United States forces have downplayed raids in Peshawar by pro-Taliban militants, destroying hundreds of their military vehicles and supply containers destined for Afghanistan, analysts here believe that the damage is significant.

A group of leading politicians head for a secret meeting with the powerful army chief as part of a plot to form a new government. But their plans go awry when they get lost in the sprawling military compound.

Anti-death penalty activists have yet to carry through their plan for a new boost of campaigning in Moroccan universities, facing a combination of outright hostility and political apathy from some students.

The United Nations climate change conference ended on a bitter note in the early hours of Saturday.

The United Nations climate change conference ended on a bitter note in the early hours of Saturday.

In just a few summers from now, the Arctic Ocean will lose its protective cover of ice for the first time in a million years, according to some experts attending the International Arctic Change conference here.

Rosa María Leyva was one of the first people to reach Caletones after it was ravaged by Hurricane Ike. It took six hours to clear the road between the small fishing and resort village -- just one of seven seaside neighbourhoods in this area destroyed by the storm -- and the eastern Cuban port city of Gibara.

The rising level of pollution in Vietnam’s waterways has been common knowledge for years. But in October it became a public scandal after Vedan, a Taiwanese maker of monosodium glutamate (MSG), confessed to discharging toxic waste through hidden pipes into a river for years.