News headlines in 2009, page 44

When the Independent Election Commission announced that Hamid Karzai would be president for another five years, local and international powers began to demand that the newly re-elected president clamp down on the corruption that had spread like a virus throughout his administration and the ministries.

Turkey’s new human rights bill has a flaw — not a single rights group was consulted in the drafting.

The clean, ultra-modern chrome and glass lines of the Bella Centre, in the Danish capital Copenhagen, is a world away from the thronging canopy suspended over the tropical forests of Uganda, or the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Cameroon.

'Most workers have limited knowledge, ultimately you don’t know how many hidden killers are in your workplace. The boss knows, but he won't tell you,' Wang Fengping, an engineer who was once employed by Hong Kong-based Gold Peak batteries at their factory in Guondong, China.

The jury is still out on what Beijing and Washington achieved during President Barack Obama’s first state visit to China last week. But one trait has emerged more strongly than anything else.

U.S. special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed an announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday that Israel will impose a 10-month 'moratorium' on settlements, but warned that the move falls short of a freeze on settlement building - a condition that has been a mainstay of U.S. policy towards Israel.

Human rights and disarmament activists reacted bitterly Wednesday to the decision by the administration of President Barack Obama, who will receive the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize next month, not to sign the 10-year-old treaty banning anti-personnel landmines.

More than 500 Chilean women have been killed by their partners, ex-partners or strangers since 2001. This year alone, there have been 52 'femicides', economist Gloria Maira said on Wednesday, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

After weeks of speculation, the White House announced Wednesday that President Barack Obama will stop by the climate talks to be held in Copenhagen next month en route to Oslo, where he will receive his Nobel Peace Prize Dec. 10.

A black community in the southern Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro is trying to maintain its cultural heritage on 287 hectares granted to it by the government in 1999 as part of reparations to the descendants of slaves.