News headlines in August 2009, page 7

It’s 'do or die' for the world’s oldest customs union. Disagreement over the development consequences of the EU’s proposed economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with African states has threatened to split the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) a year before its centenary in 2010.

Save the living environment and the physical environment will automatically be saved, according to E.O. Wilson, the world's leading biologist and father of the online Encyclopedia of Life, which plans to create a web page for every known species - all 1.8-plus million.

For the first time, feminists in Bahrain are seeking new Islamic perspectives on gender and women's empowerment, and asking for modern interpretations of the Quran.

The privatisation of the earth's resources is a recipe for famine and desertification, violence against women, hunger, and, as happens in India, the suicide of farmers, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment.

It's not so much the proverbial making-a-mountain-out-of-a-molehill, but Israel finds itself climbing out of a stinky dung heap and onto a slippery diplomatic minefield.

Palestinian refugees at Nahr Al-Bared in North Lebanon are living under tight military siege two years after a war destroyed the refugee camp. It has now become a test case for a new approach in Lebanon's security policy towards Palestinian refugee camps.

If you live in São Tomé, a good investment in your health is to plant a po-sabom tree (Dracaena aroborea) in your backyard. Leave space: it can grow up to 20 metres high, with sword-shaped leaves.

The issue of detainee interrogation and abuse – lately eclipsed by the debate over U.S. health care reform – bubbled back to the surface Monday in a number of headline-making developments.

'One way of ensuring the future of journalism is to improve content quality, and this means investigating what is deliberately hidden, like corruption,' said Gerardo Reyes, a reporter for the Miami newspaper El Nuevo Herald, on a visit to the Peruvian capital.

'The night of Oct. 23, 1976, nearly 33 years ago, was the last time I saw my son Pablo. He was 17 years old, and he was terrified. Since then I have had no reliable news about his fate. My family and I have been left at the mercy of the anguished torments of our imagination.'