News headlines in March 2009, page 22

From the flattened buildings in Gaza, through angry demonstrations outside a Swedish tennis stadium, to the web pages of human rights reports, battles continue to rage over Israel's policies and the legacy of its Gaza war.

To be a teenager and female is bad enough in the midst of a war zone, but it is often little better when the guns fall silent. Caught in a sort of limbo between childhood and adulthood, when it comes to peace and reconciliation, former girl combatants are often treated as invisible, advocates say.

Activists are calling for an economic bailout plan for women and demanding that their voices be heard at the decision-making table ahead of the G20 summit of the world's biggest economies in London on Apr. 2.

Barely a year after being elected, the Pakistan government faces a political storm involving a street agitation spearheaded by lawyers and opposition political parties allied with religious parties.

'I became a journalist to find out how they killed my father, to discover where his body is, and to take those responsible for his death to court,' Boris Ayala told IPS. 'I am not going to rest until I find out the whole truth.'

With hundreds of Australian mining companies now involved in the extraction of natural resources in Africa, the Rudd government is also aiming to play a bigger role in the continent’s affairs.

Many of the biggest mortgage lenders in the U.S. have engaged in widespread, systematic schemes that ripped off hundreds of thousands of families seeking to buy a home, refinance or foreclose, according to lawsuits filed on behalf of consumers.

Some of the world's leading banks facilitate corruption in the poorest countries, charges a new report by Global Witness, an independent watchdog group.

The global economic crisis has begun to be felt in this Salvadoran town on the Pacific coast, where remittances sent home by family members working in the United States have begun to shrink.

Scores of Middle East and democracy experts released an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday asking him to focus more of his foreign policy efforts at making reforms in the region, including boosting human rights.