News headlines in January 2009, page 2

During the three weeks of the Israel-Gaza war, then President-elect Barack Obama vowed he would be ready to engage on the Palestinian question 'on Day One' of his presidency.

African governments have rallied behind Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir in rejecting a possible international arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court on charges of orchestrating genocide in Sudan's volatile western region of Darfur.

China is preparing for the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising - which saw the Himalayan territory’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, flee into exile - with a 'strike hard' campaign and propaganda on the evils of feudal oppression in pre-1949 Tibet.

The threat of violence hangs over Fallujah again as leaders of the Awakening Council fight for political power through the elections Jan. 31.

Three weeks after the Satyam Computer Services promoter-chairman B. Ramalinga Raju confessed that he had cooked the information technology (IT) company's books, the scam continues to send shock-waves through Indian business and industry.

At the start of his Middle East presidential mission, Senator George Mitchell has listened to President Barack Obama's recommendation earlier in the week on Al-Arabiya television that he 'should start by listening, because ultimately we cannot tell Israelis and Palestinians what's best for them.'

Onyango Oloo was the national coordinator of the Kenyan Social Forum in 2007 when the last global World Social Forum (WSF)took place in Nairobi. As another gathering of activists from around the world unfolds in Belém, Brazil, IPS asked Oloo for his views on the Forum's past and future.

John Brown, a Foreign Service officer with the U.S. State Department for more than 20 years, resigned in 2003 to protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He now teaches at Georgetown University.

After the recent turmoil in Gaza, ongoing mass killings in Darfur, and the failure to timely intervene to aid survivors of last year's Cyclone Nargis in Burma, civil society groups are calling on U.N. member states to fully commit to the so-called 'Responsibility to Protect' (R2P) concept.

While applauding President Barack Obama's recent executive orders banning torture and other harsh interrogation practices, medical authorities are calling attention to a little-reported section of the Army's Field Manual on Interrogation that they say still allows the use of tactics that can constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under U.S. and international law.