News headlines in September 2009

The border dispute between two close allies, China and Burma, has now been compounded by concerns over the junta’s future relations with the United States.

Environmental groups across the southeast United States, from Georgia to the Appalachia region, are stepping up their opposition to a controversial but widespread practice by coal companies of removing the tops of mountains with explosives.

Climate change aggravates soil degradation, but sustainable use of land resources can, in turn, mitigate global warming, according to participants at the United Nations conference on desertification in the Argentine capital.

Those who died and 'disappeared' during the 1964-1985 military dictatorship in Brazil represent a mere 'one percent of the agenda' of the Special Secretariat for Human Rights (SEDH), but captivate '99 percent of the attention of the press,' complained Human Rights Secretary Paulo Vannuchi.

Sound files containing recordings of spoken Kaweshkar - a nearly extinct indigenous language of southern Chile — have been put together thanks to the work of ethnolinguist Óscar Aguilera and anthropologist José Tonko, and donated to national and foreign institutions with the aim of preserving the culture of one of Chile’s nine native groups.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s recent official visit to a handful of African countries has provided new impetus to Russian business’s interest in the region.

Human rights activists in Austria are calling for an overhaul of a detention system for migrants and asylum seekers they claim breaches human rights, following the death of a hunger-striking migrant in police cells.

Palestinian politicians and Israeli political analysts are warning of a third Palestinian Intifadah following serious rioting in East Jerusalem last Sunday.

There was no moon the night the armed men from the Murle tribe attacked the fishing village: it took place in complete darkness. Nyakong Both grabbed her two youngest boys and fled across the nearby river, as the men from the Murle tribe burnt down huts.

As the world awaits with bated breath the much-anticipated outcome of the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December, the impact of which will reverberate across the globe, Sri Lanka, like many other countries, has been reeling under sharply contrasting weather conditions.