News headlines in April 2009, page 20

Alleged abuses of a little-known section of U.S. immigration law have triggered charges of racial and ethnic profiling and diverting local law enforcement from their crime-fighting mission.

Water fights and neon-coloured water guns are a standard feature on Bangkok’s streets at this time of the year. They are part of the revelry as Thais douse each other during their New Year festival, Songkran.

A new spate of demolitions of Palestinian homes by the Israeli authorities near Jerusalem's walled Old City, plus resuscitated plans for a new major Jewish settlement building project on the outskirts of occupied East Jerusalem, threatens to spark fresh tension between Israelis and Palestinians.

Thousands of East Europeans who migrated to the West in search of work when the EU expanded in 2004 are returning home as the global financial crisis plunges their adopted countries into recession.

It's a common sight at France's most famed monument: the police chasing groups of young African and Indian men while tourists stare open-mouthed.

Yahiya Lambert won’t leave East Timor until he’s set up the country’s first art academy. He’s been here for 28 years, so a few more won’t be a problem for the 37-year-old Indonesian, a native of the Maluku Islands.

The dramatic scenes that unfolded at a regional summit forcing its cancellation Apr. 11 point to a disturbing possibility that this kingdom is heading for a long period of turmoil - pitting the conservative political establishment against the rage of the urban and provincial poor.

If the past week was any indication, the U.S.-Israeli relationship, which could scarcely have been smoother during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush, appears headed for choppy waters.

With little fanfare, genetically modified maize produced by Cuba's genetic and biotechnology engineering centre, CIGB, is being grown on test plots as part of a new project involving five of the Caribbean island nation's provinces.

In what has become a commonplace occurrence, a small boat pulled alongside a container ship and a band of men from the smaller vessel boarded the larger one. It was just another day off the Somali coast - the latest in a series of more frequent and bolder acts of piracy.