News headlines in 2009, page 48

It is normally a conference bringing together leaders from Britain and its former colonies.

Children at the largest school in this village close to the Thai-Cambodian border have a new regimen to follow besides books and sports. They have drills, practising evacuation, in case their school comes under an artillery attack.

A balanced approach of demand- and supply-side measures are needed to meet a growing 'water gap' in which global water demand will be 40 percent more than supply by 2030, says a new report from the 2030 Water Resources Group.

Nineteen-year-old Beauty Phillips clutches her emaciated baby tightly to her chest. At seven months, Inga suffers from malnutrition.

When Obed Mumba first came to the Zambian copper mining town of Ndola in search of work, it was still known reverently as 'Ku kalale' - the land of the white man. In the decades since, he has witnessed his Kabushi township outgrow the limited dreams of its planners.

If two candidates offer funds for the poor, but one of them is known for living up to his promises, who will the citizens vote for? That would seem to broadly describe the choice Bolivian voters are facing in the Dec. 6 general elections.

It is not often that anything in Serbia can bring several hundred thousand people together, but that is exactly what happened Thursday when the Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), was buried in a monastery graveyard near Belgrade.

With the health care debate preoccupying the mainstream media, it has gone virtually unreported that the Barack Obama administration is quietly supporting renewal of provisions of the George W. Bush-era USA Patriot Act that civil libertarians say infringe on basic freedoms.

Being able to travel to school in relative safety is something children all over the world take for granted. But, for Palestinian children living in the shadow of the ubiquitous and illegal Israeli settlements dotting the West Bank, simply walking to school can be a terrifying experience.

J. ran away from home - a shack in a 'favela' or shantytown in Brazil - when he was just eight years old, after he realised that the money he begged for in the streets was spent by his violent father on alcohol and drugs. He became a street urchin, as his two older brothers - with whom he lost contact long ago - had already done.