News headlines in March 2009, page 31

South Asia seems to be caught in a vortex of violence as the countries that form this region - from Sri Lanka at the southern-most tip, Bangladesh to the east, Nepal crowning the north, Pakistan along the west and India in the middle - deal with internal nightmares that their governments routinely blame on neighbours.

He was left devastated and robbed of his dream to open a restaurant in Tokyo after two Japanese banks refused to give him a small loan.

Lack of money and technical know-how makes it difficult for poor farmers to participate in the Kyoto Protocol’s carbon trading mechanism aimed at reversing global warming. Meanwhile, the global economic crisis may further undermine investment in carbon trade in African countries.

Lawyers for imprisoned 'enemy combatant' Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri are vowing to press the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case even though al-Marri was suddenly transferred to the civilian justice system after more than five years in solitary confinement in a military brig.

Lawyers for imprisoned 'enemy combatant' Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri are vowing to press the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case even though al-Marri was suddenly transferred to the civilian justice system after more than five years in solitary confinement in a military brig.

The World Ski Cup for women last weekend was organised in Bulgaria at a ski resort whose development is partially illegal, and which is damaging a world heritage site.

'Standing United with the People of Gaza' is the theme of this week's Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), which kicked off in Toronto and another 39 cities across the globe Sunday.

Magdi Hussein, secretary-general of Egypt's suspended Socialist Labour Party, has been sentenced to two years in prison by a military tribunal. Hussein, along with two others, was charged with 'infiltrating' into the Gaza Strip following Israel's recent campaign against the coastal enclave.

A cactus-like plant spread over acres of red, laterite soils in the Tree Oils research farm, in this arid part of southern India, is at the centre of huge divisions over India’s ambitious biofuel programme.

The economist and author Prof Patrick Bond warns that the optimism about the dawn of a post-neoliberal era is premature and that ‘‘a more dangerous and painful’’ period may be ahead before any real change to the current global economic regime will be possible.