News headlines in February 2009, page 11

After eight years of the closest possible relations, the United States and Israel may be headed for a period of increasing strain, particularly given the likelihood that whatever Israeli government emerges from last week's election will be more hawkish than its predecessor.

A week after Islamabad admitted that the plot to carry out the Nov. 26-29 attacks on Mumbai was partially planned in Pakistan, and that Pakistani nationals were among the assailants, there are tentative signs that the strained relations between the two neighbours may be thawing.

Egyptians seem at best only cautiously optimistic over the appointment of Senator George Mitchell as U.S. envoy to the Middle East. Mitchell is mandated chiefly with settling the Arab-Israeli dispute.

Three days ago, Jean-Charles Marchiani, a former member of the French secret services, was released from the Paris prison of La Santé where he had been serving time since May 2008. Last year, a tribunal in Paris found Marchiani guilty of influence peddling and other corruption charges involving African countries.

Israel's outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert is risking a crisis of confidence with Egypt by insisting that a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas precede any Egyptian-mediated ceasefire arrangement to end the Gaza war.

'We only want a normal life,' says Um Qasim, sitting in a bombed out building in Baghdad. She and others around have been saying that for years.

Worldwide demand for food is expected to grow steadily over the next 40 years, but 25 percent of the world's food production may be lost to 'environmental breakdowns' by 2050 unless urgent action is taken.

To be a lawyer in military-ruled Burma is to court danger, invite arrest and risk being jailed in the country’s notorious prisons.

At the government's request, the Peruvian parliament has set up a commission to investigate alleged irregularities in the sale of Petro Tech Peruana (PTP) to Ecopetrol, the Colombian state oil company, and the South Korean National Oil Corporation (KNOC). But opposition politicians are sceptical of the outcome and have refused to participate.

With foreclosures skyrocketing and U.S. families sinking deeper into poverty, a number of organisations are turning to a new strategy to end homelessness: moving families into vacant, foreclosed houses that are currently owned by banks or the government.