News headlines in June 2009, page 18

Development in Africa should be boosted through labour-intensive production on small to medium sized farms. To advance food security in Africa, governments should assist small farmers with credit lines and infrastructure while buffering them against fluctuations in world food prices.

Gaza, South Africa and Thailand are among the world's worst places to be a refugee, according to the latest annual World Refugee Survey released here Wednesday by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).

A crisis summit organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to halt millions of job losses across the world due to the global economic slowdown ended Wednesday with a ringing call by its host to act now and put 'the workers first before anything else.'

Beijing has reined in China’s unbridled dam-building spree, issuing warnings to power-hungry developers that stimulating the economy in a time of crisis should not be used as an excuse to forego environmental reviews of big hydroelectric projects.

How many varieties of date palm or melon exist? And why should we care? IPS spoke to three 'Guardians of Diversity' so named by Bioversity International for their contribution to conservation.

A town in Argentina has launched a programme that requires restaurants and other food producers to hand over their used vegetable oils to be distilled into biodiesel, which will be used to run the city's vehicles and public transportation.

At least 11 Sri Lankan journalists were driven into exile in the past 12 months amid an intensive government crackdown on critical reporters and editors, said a new survey from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has laid out his terms for peace in the Middle East. In a highly anticipated speech at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University last Sunday, Netanyahu said – for the first time – that he was willing to consider a 'demilitarised' Palestinian state, existing side by side with Israel.

Ever since being elected as President in 2008, conservative Lee-Myung-bak has pursued a hard-line policy towards North Korea, with the country’s left also blaming him for recent tensions in the peninsula.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit at Yekaterinburg Tuesday appears to have been motivated chiefly by the security environment in the region shaping up around Washington’s ‘AfPak’ policy.