News headlines in September 2011, page 6

Children and youth from 120 countries called on world leaders on Tuesday to pay heed to the looming climate crisis and act to prevent the natural disasters that are in store for the planet.

The U.S. threat last week that 'all options' are on the table if the Pakistani military doesn't cut its ties with the Haqqani network of anti-U.S. insurgents created the appearance of a crisis involving potential U.S. military escalation in Pakistan.

Revelations that proprietors are requesting light-skinned workers from a government training institution is putting a new spin on Jamaica's so-called obsession with skin bleaching.

If Palestine fails to achieve full statehood recognition at the United Nations, the only other viable option is to get 'enhanced' observer status with the 193-member General Assembly, the U.N.'s highest policy making body.

The possibility of exploiting the hitherto inaccessible natural resources of the Arctic Ocean is becoming increasingly tangible with the thawing of the North Pole, much to the alarm of European scientists.

The Serbian parliament has adopted one of the most long awaited — and most controversial — laws in its recent history: the law on restitution of property confiscated by the communist regime after World War II.

The steel and oil industries are still finding new frontiers for expansion. In Brazil's impoverished semiarid Northeast the key is not, like in China, cheap labour power or abundant raw materials, but logistical advantages.

'Every quarter, more than a hundred women with fistulas - including many younger than 20 years old - are admitted for surgery in Maniema province,' says nurse Julie Mawazo. 'The number of affected women who don't have the means or awareness to come in must be far greater.'

This year Fatimata Koama and her associates received more than half a million CFA francs as a reward for planting - and looking after - 1,200 trees in their small corner of Burkina Faso.

A ruling by the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) at The Hague, staying construction of a dam across a river that flows into Pakistan, has brought cheer to the tribal people who live around the site.