News headlines in August 2011, page 9

As the world’s worst food security crisis continues across the Horn of Africa, including in Kenya, some smallholder farmers in the western part of the country are still feeding their families with last year’s abundant harvest.

Along with the devastating drone strikes the United States-led ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan is bringing changes to punitive laws imposed by British colonialism on Pakistan’s Pashtun areas more than a century ago.

'I’m 60 years old and I never thought I'd see this moment with my own eyes,' Najib Taghuz tells IPS from the Tunisian-Libyan border. The engineer from the recently liberated town Gehryan is headed for Tunisia - his wife needs surgery on the left hand. But he hopes to return to a new Libya.

A mix of local and international initiatives are aimed at saving the mangrove forests and other coastal wetlands of Honduras, home to an abundance of marine life and a natural protective barrier against hurricanes, which have shrunk by over 80 percent on the Caribbean coast and almost a third on the Pacific coast.

The life support system that generates the planet’s air, water, and food is powered by 8.7 million living species according to the newest and best estimate. We know next to nothing about 99 percent of those unique species - except that lots of them are going extinct.

Rebels have entered the fortified compound of Muammar Gaddafi in Bab al-Azizya in Tripoli, following intense fighting with forces loyal to the Libyan leader.

The promoters of Keystone XL, a huge new oil pipeline from northern Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast, claim that it will reduce U.S. reliance on oil imports from unfriendly countries.

Since the 1960s, maquiladoras or export assembly plants have been the cornerstone of Mexico's strategy to attract foreign direct investment and boost exports. But the environmental and social costs have been high.

The rapid growth of urban population - described as one of the world’s major demographic trends - has triggered an explosion of 'mega cities' in Asia, Latin America and Africa, causing a breakdown in basic services, including water supplies and sanitation facilities.

People do not normally leave their homes, their families, and their communities unless they have no other option. Yet as environmental stresses mount, we can expect to see a growing number of environmental refugees. Rising seas and increasingly devastating storms grab headlines, but expanding deserts, falling water tables, and toxic waste and radiation are also forcing people from their homes.