News headlines in September 2009, page 9

Understanding desertification as a macroeconomic problem, with financial, productive, environmental and civil society aspects, is a major concern for Christian Mersmann, the managing director of the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Less than three months before a key global negotiation on curbing greenhouse gases, a new study released here Thursday by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) warns that climate change is taking place faster than anticipated.

Almost before anyone knew it, a new language has become current leading up to the two-day G20 meet in Pittsburgh that divides the world in ways that seem suitable at the high table of the day. The new tiers are the developed, the emerging, and of course the poor.

The same thing could happen to the people of Mexico City as in the Pixar blockbuster Wall-E, where the human species has abandoned earth because it is covered with garbage, and a trash collecting robot has been left to clean up.

Promises are easy to make. But promises by world leaders will not halt the heat-trapping carbon emissions that are dialing-up global temperatures and altering the climate, say critics and climate researchers meeting in this U.S. Midwestern city.

Eight children between the ages of 10 and 17 were arrested and detained by Israeli soldiers during military raids Monday night and Tuesday morning in the northern West Bank cities Nablus and Qalqilia.

The call for snap elections on Oct 2, about two years earlier than the end of the government's mandate surprised no one in Greece. They were in fact overdue given the political bankruptcy of the government of the right-wing party New Democracy (ND).

Millions of trees, especially from the developing countries of the South, are being shipped to Europe and burned in giant furnaces to meet 'green energy' requirements that are supposed to combat climate change.

An aquatic species whose pelts are in high demand by the fur trade are gradually disappearing — and they need a sanctuary fast. Yet not one is forthcoming.

With South Africa being the only African country with a seat on the Group of 20 (G20) while serving as co-chair of the working group on reforming the International Monetary Fund, it has 'a moral obligation towards the continent to call for more responsible management of the global financial system'.