News headlines in April 2009, page 17

Brazil’s landless movement (MST) has launched its annual April demonstrations to demand an acceleration of land reform efforts and commemorate the Eldorado de Carajás massacre, in which 19 rural protesters were killed by the police and hundreds injured.

On any given day, a pall of smog and dust hangs over Kabul's streets. It clings to the face, burns the eyes, and stains the hands. It bathes the cars, often stuck bumper-to-bumper in traffic, and occludes the view of the distant mountains.

With traditional tourism hit hard by the global recession, Costa Rica is seeking to draw foreign visitors by offering low-cost, high-quality health care – especially targeting people from the United States, where the same medical procedures can cost up to four times more.

Sumitra Mitra has been a Communist for over 45 years. She has seen the party grow from its days of radical activism to its present powerful establishment phase - leading the government in West Bengal state for an uninterrupted 30 years.

Chem Hout sits at the Maxxi coffee shop on a busy thoroughfare in this rural town of western Cambodia, waiting for the school bus to drop off his nine-year-old son. When the mini-bus eventually pulls by, it carries the Chinese characters for the local Chinese bilingual school - the enviable choice of Chem and other parents who can afford to send their children there.

The Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) started its assembly in the Ethiopian capital on Apr. 5 with a debate called by women parliamentarians.

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of aid intended for the Gaza Strip is piling up in cities across Egypt's North Sinai region, despite recent calls from the United Nations to ease aid flow restrictions to the embattled territory in the wake of Operation Cast Lead.

'Intifadah', scream the animals as they chase Jones from the farm. Strobe lights flash and loud music blares as the packed audience sits captivated, eyes trained on the stage below.

The new century brought new growth across the Balkans after the turbulent 1990s. But the advance is proving short-lived as the global recession hits the region hard.

International donors have pledged 324 million dollars over the next two years in additional aid to help Haiti recover from food riots and damage to roads and other key infrastructure caused by four hurricanes that ravaged Latin America's poorest nation last summer.