News headlines in June 2009, page 12

In March 1997, FBI Director Louis Freeh got what he calls in his memoirs 'the first truly big break in the case': the arrest in Canada of one of the Saudi Hezbollah members the Saudis accused of being the driver of the getaway car at Khobar Towers.

For the first time in 15 years, an organisation, the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), is attempting to measure the progress, or lack of progress, of women in media organisations globally.

Facing a growing chorus of Republican criticism to speak out more forcefully on Iran’s disputed election results, the U.S. president made his harshest statement yet Tuesday, condemning Iran’s leadership for its violent crackdown on protesters.

Spain, considered a pioneer in the area of universal justice and especially legal action in human rights cases, is about to take a step backwards in that regard. On Tuesday, activists and legal experts criticised a draft law that would limit the Spanish courts’ ability to investigate human rights abuses committed in other countries.

The United States Tuesday urged the government of Sudan and former rebels in the south to re-invigorate their 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), as 30 Sudanese political leaders met with 170 observers from 32 countries and international organisations here to discuss the faltering CPA, which expires in 2011.

The continuing occupation or Iraq and the growing war in Afghanistan are leaving permanent physical and emotional scars on a whole generation of U.S. soldiers. Not since Vietnam have so many GIs objected to a war, and never have military families spoken out so strongly for withdrawal.

Growing U.S. support for U.N. initiatives is raising hopes among those who want to see the world community take immediate and concrete action to tackle climate change, although their optimism is also tinged with scepticism.

Eleven days after Iran’s disputed Jun. 12 president election, the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears determined to round up key members of the opposition, journalists and human rights activists who could play a key role in rallying public support for opposition demands.

While the world's attention was riveted on the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama, an operation was surreptitiously being carried out Jan. 19-21 at the headquarters of Colombia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), which answers directly to the president’s office.

Serious allegations of corruption involving central figures in the government of right-wing former Salvadoran president Antonio Saca (2004-2009) will be investigated by a commission led by Finance Minister Carlos Cáceres.