News headlines in September 2011, page 2

The guavas grown by Mariana Rosales are big and bright green, and the best thing about them, she says proudly, is that she does not spend a single cent on fertilisers to produce them — something extremely rare in a country like El Salvador.

More than 20 percent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean lacks basic sanitation and 15 percent has no access to drinking water because of poor management, said experts at a meeting that ended Thursday in Brazil.

The exceptionally nutritious moringa tree, native to the foothills of the Himalayas and cultivated in several Latin American countries, could help fight malnutrition in this region.

Guns available in new abundance in the troubled north of Pakistan are increasingly being used on women in ‘honour’ killings and domestic disputes, according to local reports.

A Taiwan military tribunal has confirmed that the late Air Force private Chiang Kuo-ching had been wrongfully executed in August 1997 for the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl. But campaigners against the death penalty doubt that this will restore the moratorium on capital punishment the Taiwan government broke in April last year.

More than a dozen U.S. and international human rights and arms control groups are urging Congress to block a proposed 53- million-dollar arms sale to Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet, until it ends its crackdown against the opposition and adopts serious reforms.

More than 20 percent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean lacks basic sanitation and 15 percent has no access to drinking water because of poor management, said experts at a meeting that ended Thursday in Brazil.

Despite an overall increase in global internet usage and in the prevalence of information and communication technologies (ICTs), the gap between developing and developed countries remains vast when it comes to accessing broadband connections.

With the exception of those pictures of Haitians in overcrowded, unseaworthy vessels trying to reach places like The Bahamas and the United States, the image of the Caribbean is usually not one that portrays people from poor developing countries desperately trying to scratch out a living among the scattered islands.

Climate change is increasingly playing a role in North-South trade, as carbon emissions are being used as an excuse to protect markets, with poorer countries likely to lose out.