News headlines in 2008, page 5

While lazier caricatures have always cast Vice-President Dick Cheney as the puppet-master pulling George W. Bush’s strings, it is the image of Cheney as master bureaucrat that provides the real key to understanding his power.

Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), the Pakistani organisation on which the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) imposed sanctions two weeks ago, on suspicion of being involved in terror activity, insists that it is a charity and that it will challenge the ban at the International Court of Justice.

Social activists and members of 'unusual couples,' as the Catholic Church calls gay, lesbian and transsexual unions, are discussing possible actions to be taken on Jan. 13-18, 2009 when Mexico hosts the Sixth World Meeting of Families organised by the Vatican.

EU membership remains the declared goal of many of the countries carved out of former Yugoslavia, but recent developments have made that goal more distant than before.

The Mexican mining company Autlán maintains that there is no evidence that manganese causes any harm to human health. But in the central state of Hidalgo, where the metal is mined, adults shake as if they suffered from Parkinson's disease and children's mental development lags behind normal.

Christian Lebanese have been long-time foes of the Syrian regime, and their history is tainted with blood, mistrust and assassinations. This month, one of Lebanon's' leading Christian leaders, Gen. Michel Aoun, visited Syria, ending years of dissension between his party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

With voting for the provincial elections in Indian Kashmir safely over, observers say that what was remarkable about the process -- apart from its relative peacefulness -- was the active participation of women in a Muslim-majority state.

On Christmas Day, Robson Nzuza and his family usually drive to their village in Silobela, in the Midlands Province, to spend a week with members of the extended family and throw a big party.

Just under 48 hours after the death of Guinean president, Lansana Conté on Dec. 22, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara has been named Guinea's new head of state by the National Council for Democracy and Development, known by its French acronym, CNDD.

Despite hundreds of billions of dollars thrown at banks large and small, the U.S. economy is in a free fall, just weeks before President-elect Barack Obama takes office, analysts say.