News headlines in 2009, page 35

For Waqas Ahmed, 9, the sight of half a dozen gun-totting policemen—perched on the rooftop of the mosque in his neighbourhood—was very disturbing, to say the least. He had been used to seeing a security guard frisking the faithful during Friday prayers. But what he saw this time on his way to the mosque to say his Eid ul

Once a week lunch order from the school canteen was something Emily and Damien’s children looked forward to, but since the global financial crisis began last year, little treats and outings are an absolute ‘No’.

The 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) this month has brought women's rights champions from around the world to the United Nations to share their success stories. One is Sujata Manohar, who helped create a national law in India that bars sexual harassment in the workplace.

Growing up in Cameroon, Joseph-Antoine Bell and his friends used to think that by playing football they could get rid of malaria.

As part of a project to support community initiatives and fight poverty in South Senegal, the Sédhiou Local Development Fund received a donation of agricultural equipment worth more than half a million dollars in a bid to reverse the region's dramatic drop in agricultural production in recent years.

In Peru, 51 percent of all jobs are generated by the informal economy, a sector that has a female face, as more than 60 percent of the women workers in the country are forced into informality, with only 15 percent having health coverage and a mere four percent enjoying retirement benefits.

President Barack Obama's speech Tuesday night at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point laid out his administration's plan to deploy an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and start a phased withdrawal beginning in 18 months, but the plan has won the White House few supporters in both its own party or across the aisle.

The firm stance taken by Western Sahara independence activist Aminatou Haidar, in her third week of a hunger strike in an airport in Spain's Canary Islands, contrasts with the weak position of the Spanish government vis-à-vis the Moroccan government, which it has failed to pressure to allow the activist to return to her homeland.

Three minutes to speak about the world trade situation was a little more than U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk needed to sum up his country's position on trade; after eight years of talks to thrash out a single trade deal, he needed less time than that.

Martha* knows she and her two young sisters need medicine. She also knows where to get it — a clinic a few yards away from her home in Glen Norah, a high-density suburb in the Zimbabwean capital.