News headlines in September 2010, page 2

A natural gas explosion in San Bruno, California that almost decimated an entire city earlier this month has fuelled concerns about the outdated, aging, and dangerous gas pipelines that underlie many U.S. cities.

Judith Sikhosana recently gave birth to a healthy baby boy. And while she has strictly followed the advice of health workers about the post-natal care for her child, there is one thing she is yet to understand: why nurses want her baby to be circumcised.

While researchers and farmers are still divided on the benefits of growing crops for biofuel production as Africa grapples with food security, Senegal is steadily working to balance the growing demands for food and bio fuels.

As recently as the mid-1980s, China relied on steam-powered relics to transport citizens and goods around its vast territory. Today, the country is home to 6,900 kilometres of high-speed passenger train routes in what is the largest rail network in the world —and growing.

He is only 13 and a refugee in a not-too-hospitable country, but Ahmed Jamal already knows what he wants to do for the next decade or so: follow in the footsteps of his older brother.

Amid new calls for Washington to attack Iran's nuclear facilities if its diplomatic efforts at curbing Tehran's uranium-enrichment programme fail, the United States Wednesday imposed unilateral sanctions against eight senior Iranian officials whom it accused of committing 'sustained and severe violations of human rights'.

Speaking ahead of next week's World Bank and IMF annual meetings here, World Bank President Robert Zoellick critiqued both development economics generally and the lack of transparency of his own institution.

As concern grows for the health and lives of 38 Mapuche prisoners on a hunger strike in different prisons in southern Chile, IPS consulted academics about the problems underlying the conflict.

In the semi-arid Laikipia district of Kenya’s Rift Valley province, research scientist Sarah Ogalleh Ayeri travels from one village to the other, documenting methods used by peasant farmers as they attempt to adapt to changing climatic conditions.

This death toll from a cholera epidemic in Cameroon's North and Far North provinces stands at 420, according to public health minister André Mama Fouda. The outbreak of the waterborne disease throws an unwelcome spotlight on inadequate access to clean water and sanitation, particularly in the country’s rural north.