News headlines in August 2011, page 32

When the old Astor Hotel reopened to great fanfare from the local city fathers here in 2010, it marked more the return of the 'Grande Dame of Tianjin' to the city’s growing collection of luxury hotels. It was a travel back to the future. It manifested the city leaders’ eagerness to embrace and rebrand the colonial heritage as a way of boosting Tianjin’s modern identity.

As both houses of Congress began debating the 11th-hour debt limit deal hashed out Sunday night by senior lawmakers and the White House, neo-conservatives and other national security hawks complained bitterly Monday that the final package may force major cuts in defence spending in the coming years.

The U.N. Security Council has continued to remain politically paralysed on the indiscriminate killings of civilians in Syria, and that paralysis, according to U.N. diplomats, has been triggered ironically by the ongoing turmoil in another Arab nation - Libya.

A bullet to his shoulder forced him to spend seven days in the hospital. In another attempt on his life, he was shot at three times, but miraculously escaped unscathed. 'I will never sit next to a window again,' says Brazilian rural activist Walter Moura.

Syrian activists say at least eight people have been killed after government forces launched fresh attacks in several cities.

After journeying 1,500 km from Honduras, 56-year-old Maura Sánchez reached the central Zócalo square in the Mexican capital Monday, to demand respect and justice for undocumented migrants in this country.

The Ivorian government has begun compensating small and medium-sized businesses for damages suffered during the post-election crisis, in order to relaunch the economy.

At last there seems to be real progress in overhauling the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as measure of a country's status and progress -almost twenty years after 170 governments pledged to do so by signing Article 40 of Agenda 21 at the 1992 Rio Conference, writes Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy and president of Ethical Markets Media (USA and Brazil).

The Society for International Development (SID)'s triennial World Congress, which concluded Sunday in Washington, drew over 1,000 attendees this year, 40 percent hailing from the global south, making it arguably one of the most influential and far-reaching forums for development experts and organisations in the world today.

'My father was a boat-builder and I learned from him, worked on boats all my life. Now there's no work at all.' Abu Fayez Bakr, 64, is one of two boat-builders in the Gaza Strip, the last of a dying trade, despite Palestinians' penchant for the sea and its bounty.