News headlines in August 2009, page 4

Despite progress in bringing Mexican law into compliance with the international treaty against human trafficking, little has been achieved so far in this country in terms of prosecutions and convictions of traffickers, protection of victims and prevention of this increasingly widespread crime, says a new report released in the Mexican capital Thursday.

'Our profit so far is 5,000 Namibian dollars, divided by twenty people,' reports Anna Nauses. Silence descends on the office of the Prosopis Project in Okombahe as all do the math. Sixteen months of hard labour felling water-thirsty trees along the Omaruru River has yielded just 30 U.S. dollars per person.

The cyclical climate phenomenon known as El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the equatorial Pacific Ocean this year is helping weaken cyclone activity in the Northern Atlantic and the Caribbean. But Cuban meteorologists are warning against complacency.

It isn't formal yet, but it's bound to be soon - within the coming six weeks, Palestinians and Israelis will again be sitting down around the peace table.

Dorothy Tembo wears a look that tells a story of years of hard work. She dotes over her grandchildren and enjoys talking about the past. A keen observer of the history happening around her, she easily narrates Zimbabwe's trials and tribulations from the pre-independence years to the present, of which she says she has never seen so much death and suffering.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has brought misery to Tajikistan's remote eastern half. People are being driven once again to live as nomads.

The 'poison' of populist politics in central and Eastern Europe is behind an escalating row between two new EU member states that could spill over into ethnic violence, political analysts warn.

The ongoing Khmer Rouge tribunal here of Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, has heard some highly charged testimony in recent weeks, as civil parties have told the court of how the murders of their loved ones ruined their lives.

In her 48 years, Natividad Obeso has already lived several different lives. There was the time when she lived in her native Peru as a successful businesswoman and mother of four. Then there was the time when she spent her days wandering the streets of the Argentine capital, penniless and alone, a fugitive of political persecution that she never understood.

Washington continues to wait on results from last week's elections in Afghanistan, but few analysts here expect the outcome to provide much of a boost to the U.S.-backed campaign against the Taliban, regardless of who wins.