News headlines in August 2009

On what he referred to as 'a new independence day for Brazil,' President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced Monday proposed new legislation that would increase state control over the management of the country's enormous offshore oil finds, with the aim of channeling much of the state's oil revenue into a national social fund.

The Emory University School of Law and a coalition of Iranian students co-hosted a daylong seminar Saturday to discuss the controversial Jun. 12 Iranian presidential election and the human rights abuses perpetrated in its wake.

Climate change is here. The challenge in Geneva this week is to find ways to help the world cope with a climate that will have more and worse extremes in terms of temperatures, floods, and storms.

The Venezuelan economy, which has grown steadily for more than five years, contracted by 2.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, heightening fears of stagflation, an unwelcome combination of recession and high inflation.

The State of Israel against the former leader of the State of Israel - for the first time, a former prime minister will soon be in the defendant's chair in a criminal court.

The future of East Jerusalem and of Palestinian access to it has again been brought under the spotlight.

With the world’s attention focused on climate change, one of the methods suggested to reduce global carbon emissions is causing the displacement of indigenous persons as western companies rush to invest in tree-planting projects in developing countries.

Thailand’s draconian lese majeste law is steadily emerging as a testing ground for the principles that renowned international human rights lobbies stand for.

In Egypt, women have not achieved the same career levels as their male counterparts. Women are chiefly employed as civil servants, in small family businesses or as manual labour in the agricultural sector.

The once serene road to Tim and Linda Ewert's organic farm near Tomslake in northeastern British Columbia has become a mess of dust clouds, drilling rigs and hordes of pick-up trucks as the area transforms into the newest frontier of Canada's natural gas boom.