News headlines in July 2009, page 25

When the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) holds its triennial summit meeting in the Red Sea coastal town of Sharm el-Sheikh next week, Cuba will formally hand over the chairmanship of one of the world's largest single political groups to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The boom in the acquisition of arable land in Africa by foreign companies and governments has stirred an international debate between international institutions such as the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and non-governmental groups and independent experts.

If you are a woman in prison anywhere in the world, you would be fortunate to be in one of the new model prisons in the Dominican Republic.

Trade between Spain and Equatorial Guinea is flourishing, amidst calls by activists for the government of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to push for democracy in this tiny country on the Atlantic coast of Africa, still under the yoke of dictatorship.

Clear signs are emerging at the G8 summit here of progress towards concluding new terms for international trade.

At the age of 13, Kommaly Chantavong, now 64, walked over 600 kms to Vientiane from her home in Lao’s northern province of Huaphan. She walked through the buzzing war with the French in bare feet. All she took were heirloom pieces of woven silk, legacies from her grandmothers.

Wednesday was the second day of a three-day strike declared by trade unions and social movements in Peru to protest the economic policies of President Alan García.

Innovative solutions at a time of crisis, extending services and technology to the poor and building democracy around the initiatives of ordinary citizens are the prescription to combat poverty that Roberto Haudry, head of IFAD for the Andean subregion, would suggest to Latin American governments.

'The world needs a new global governance,' the G5 declared Wednesday, 'the construction of which must be based on inclusive multilateralism.' As rhetoric goes, this might sound like more of the same. But the time and place of that declaration gave the words a new significance.

The government of Equatorial Guinea has looted billions of dollars in oil revenue instead of improving the lives of its citizens, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Thursday.