News headlines in April 2009, page 21

The U.K. government’s recent announcement that it will conduct an inquiry into Britain’s involvement in Iraq has led to calls here for Australia to review its own participation in the controversial war.

The hero of one of Vietnam’s most famous fairytales, Thanh Giong, chased invaders from the nation using a bamboo staff and brought peace and prosperity to the nation.

Campaigners in Romania have very effectively used the media to break the public silence around the issue of domestic violence against women, and lobby for changes in laws.

Pakistan’s Mukhtaran Mai, who gained global acclaim for daring to take her rapists to court, announced her marriage last month to an already married police constable.

The economic partnerships agreements (EPAs) will throw African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries further into poverty and negatively affect the livelihoods of people living in ACP countries. These trade deals will prevent African countries from achieving the United Nations’ millennium development goals (MDGs).

As the U.S. prepares to reduce its military presence in Iraq while intensifying its war effort in Afghanistan, hawks within both the Republican and Democratic parties have come increasingly to believe that counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine offers a solution to the central security challenges Washington will face in the 21st century.

The world is losing its northern freezer as Arctic winter ice is in sharp decline, NASA scientists reported this week. Even with below average winter temperatures, Arctic ice is thinner and covers less area than it did a decade ago.

A delegation of seven British Labour members of parliament and 10 trade union leaders from the U.S., Canada and Britain said they were in a 'state of shock' over what they heard during a week-long fact-finding mission to Colombia.

'Oh, dear Lord, what I am going through,' 'N', a 25-year-old Iraqi from Baghdad wrote several months ago. 'Am I going to see my family again? Sometimes, I even see my own dead body, lying somewhere. And I imagine the pain my death would cause to the people I love the most.'

President Barack Obama has spoken out forcefully - including this week, in Ankara, Turkey - in favour of building an independent Palestinian state alongside a still robust Israel. However, many Palestinians have noted that President George W. Bush also, in recent years, expressed a commitment to Palestinian statehood. But, they note, Bush never took the actions necessary to achieve such a state - and neither, until now, has Obama.