News headlines in August 2011, page 28

'We are suffering in the midst of plenty.' That was how Nelson Ilemchi summed up his plight as he spent an entire day queuing to buy kerosene. Since January Africa’s largest producer of crude oil has been experiencing a protracted nationwide scarcity of the refined product.

The 'pro-Israel, pro-peace' lobby group J Street has drawn a lot of attention in its short lifetime. Despite decidedly moderate politics, its leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami, has repeatedly been the centre of controversy, and the group's very existence has stirred debate in the U.S. Jewish community about the boundaries of acceptable discourse on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

President Bashar al-Assad has issued a decree authorising a multi-party political system in Syria, a day after the U.N. Security Council issued a statement condemning the regime's use of force against protesters.

Lack of budget resources and political will, according to activists, is preventing fulfilment of the provisions of El Salvador's long-awaited new law for the comprehensive protection of children and adolescents.

Amidst growing calls in Congress for stronger measures to effect 'regime change' in Syria, the administration of President Barack Obama is escalating its rhetoric against President Bashar Al-Assad.

A long-running and violent dispute over land between two communities in the district of Metinaro, east of Timor-Leste’s capital Dili, ended with a dance, a prayer, a speech and the sacrifice of two farmyard animals, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, confirmed Wednesday that famine has spread to three more areas: the Afgoye Corridor, the capital Mogadishu and Middle Shabelle.

China’s rapidly growing legion of microbloggers is proving a worthy foe against ongoing government efforts to monitor, influence and censor information on the country’s vast Internet. Government efforts have failed to curb an outpouring of anger and grief in the wake of the recent Wenzhou train disaster.

Matashichi Oishi, 78, a radiation victim from Bikini Atoll, the site of a U.S. hydrogen bomb test in 1954, will make his annual lone visit this week to commemorate the Aug. 6 anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima 66 years ago.

Sitting outside her small shop, high in the mountains in the Tacueyó indigenous reserve in southwest Colombia, Liliana Alarco tries to hold back tears as she recalls the day her young son was injured.