News headlines in February 2009, page 10

Negotiations for the political endgame of the recent Gaza war have proven much more difficult than - presumably - the Israeli cabinet imagined last December, when it took the final decision to start the war.

On his first foreign visit as U.S. president, Barack Obama's rhetoric of 'hope' and 'change' came face to face with the hard, divisive policy realities of climate change from Canada's tar sands, a growing insurgency in Afghanistan and the sputtering world economy.

The skeletons are tumbling out of China’s cupboard of buried memories. The 30th anniversary of China’s brief but bloody war with Vietnam may have gone unmarked but for the fact that Feb.17 also saw the start of the trial of the chief torturer of Cambodia’s grisly Khmer Rouge.

United States diplomats are back in force at the U.N., after having distanced themselves from the world body for several years. This week they contributed to successful mediation between Georgia and Russia, although they did not help resolve a stalemate on gay rights.

Eighteen U.S. human rights groups Thursday joined a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and a retired top diplomat in calling on President Barack Obama to appoint a non-partisan commission of leading citizens to examine and report on the treatment of detainees held by the United States during President George W. Bush's 'global war on terror.'

Despite the heavy military presence of the United States and other Western powers, Afghanistan remains the world's largest illicit producer of opium, according to a new study released by experts who monitor the worldwide trade in narcotics on behalf of the United Nations.

Environmental experts warn that climate change will lead to oceanic acidification and increase surface water temperatures, especially AROUND the African continent. This will affect fish stocks and, as a result, threaten the livelihoods of small-scale fishing communities.

As U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder prepared for his first trip to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, next week, human rights advocates suffered a stinging defeat when a federal appeals court ruled that 17 Chinese Muslims scheduled for release from the Caribbean detention centre could not enter the U.S. and must remain in custody.

The United States is planning to send an additional 17,000 troops to one of the world's most battle-scarred nations - Afghanistan - long described as 'a graveyard of empires'.

The new president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development takes over at a time when women farmers are becoming a growing force - without a growing voice.