News headlines in September 2009, page 4

Cuba's official newspaper and organ of the Communist Party recently published a story that stunned the populace: in a country where the lack of food has become endemic and causes the people dire economic hardship, tonnes of agricultural products were left to rot outside the city of Havana because there were neither the containers nor the vehicles nor the organisational capacity to transport them, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a dozen languages.

As the countdown to the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit draws to a close, gender and climate change advocates are doubling their efforts to make sure that 23 gender-related paragraphs in the negotiating text will make it to the new treaty that will be hammered out in December.

Near the banks of the Orange River, farm manager Le Roux Viljoen sends off an SMS to a weather station and receives an almost instantaneous response telling him the temperature, wind direction and estimated evaporation index.

Three years after being seized from their families and forced to marry and have sex with adult men in a Shona ritual to appease an avenging spirit, five teenagers are facing a dismal reality.

'I hope to see a society where women can comfortably work and raise a family — at the same time.'

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori pleaded guilty Monday to wiretapping opposition lawmakers and journalists, bribing legislators to switch over to his side in Congress, and using public funds to purchase a cable news channel to back up his reelection campaign.

Brazil's claim to a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council could be strengthened if its decision to provide protection for ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in its embassy turns out well, or it could see complications arise as the result of a new reputation for carrying out Hugo Chávez-style 'bold actions.'

The world economic crisis has called attention to shifting international power structures as emerging economies gain more influence and the failure of globalisation to assist the poorest countries becomes clear, said World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick in anticipation of the bank's annual meeting in Istanbul, Turkey next week.

Whether or not his words were meant to rekindle debate on the merits of a Caribbean court, the statement by British jurist Lord Phillips that 'in an ideal world' the former Commonwealth countries would stop using the Privy Council and instead set up their own final courts of appeal has done just that.

South Africans may have to start paying more for water if they do not manage their water resources efficiently.