News headlines in 2009, page 53

In a secluded valley a few miles from Kabul's international airport, Caterpillar turbines custom-built in Germany and giant transformers flown in from Mexico hum away at a brand-new power plant.

Thanks to effective social policies and measures that have strengthened the economy, most of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have managed to weather the impact of the global recession, although poverty has risen slightly for the first time since 2002.

As Slovaks mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism this week, former dissidents have lashed out at top political figures, including the prime minister, who they say are trying to paint the totalitarian regime of old in a positive light.

As Vietnam’s big cities are increasingly deluged by floods, the infrastructure cannot keep up.

Ida Farida, 33, never imagined she would lose the job that she had held for 10 years.

The stereotypical image of a French person is of someone wearing a beret and carrying a baguette under his arm. But can one wear a burqa and also be French? Can one prefer pitta bread to baguettes and still be French?

Every morning, dozens of trucks laden with diesel from Turkmenistan lumber out of the northern Afghan border town of Hairaton on a two-day trek across the Hindu Kush down to Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.

The price of a major combination vaccine called the 'pentavalent' has fallen considerably over the past year, bringing the cost per dose below three dollars - a decrease of almost 50 cents, according to data released Wednesday by an alliance of public and private partners who have worked to bring down vaccine prices in the developing world.

While Cuban President Raul Castro has implemented some economic and administrative reforms, his three-year-old government has continued to isolate and persecute political dissidents, according to a major new report released here Wednesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, movement in the standoff between the two sides can be as often backward as it is forward. The past couple of weeks have seen moves from both sides that have garnered the attention of the world, but forward progress remains elusive.