News headlines in July 2009, page 26

In the shadow of the Eglise Sainte Claire in the Petite Place Cazeau neighbourhood of Haiti’s bustling capital, Frantz Saintil is visiting his daughter and reflecting on the more than two decades he spent abroad before finding himself back in his native country of Haiti seven years ago.

Following a loss in federal court, the organisation representing detainees held by the U.S. without charge at Bagram prison in Afghanistan called on the Barack Obama administration to 'reverse the flawed policies of the previous Bush White House' and end the indefinite detention without trial of Afghan civilians held in U.S. custody.

While President Barack Obama conceded in his speech in Cairo last month that U.S. rules on charitable giving 'have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation', civil rights advocates are pressing the president to turn his words into action.

Trade is positively linked to economic growth but trade policies alone cannot be relied upon to meet a country’s poverty reduction objectives, admits a review of aid for trade that was compiled for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

These days, people in the Argentine capital are largely avoiding the traditional greeting: a peck on the cheek. Doctor's orders, amidst the fast spread of the H1N1 influenza virus, otherwise known as swine flu.

In Janice Fine's most recent project, eight workers centres have joined with the Centre for Community Change, where she is a senior fellow for organising and policy, to provide inexpensive financial services to low-wage immigrant workers. The services also provide an income stream and membership base for the centres.

It is hard to say whether U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will find herself being quizzed more on Washington's 'AfPak' strategy to contain global terror or her appeasement of a financially muscular China, when she lands in India mid-July.

It is with too much ease that we all sometimes use the word 'revolution'. Because all too often the change being championed is one that too many others simply do not notice. But that isn't the case here: the change pushed for at the G8 summit in Italy, and at other such forums, is no less than revolutionary, and can only be seen as historic.

'How is it that you can buy a 99-cent cheeseburger but not even a head of broccoli?' wonders Michael Pollan, author and co-narrator of the new documentary 'Food, Inc.'.

The fourth largest river in Africa, the mighty Zambezi, is a lifeblood to 32 million people, from land-locked Zambia to Mozambique in the Indian Ocean. But its blessing is also its curse.