News headlines in March 2009, page 2

Om Chantha,69, says she has waited far too long before finally seeing, with her own eyes, Khmer Rouge leader Duch face trial for torture, crimes against humanity and murder.

Theary Seng, orphaned by the Khmer Rouge, believes in the invisible bonds that suffering weaves among people. She calls it the 'fellowship of suffering'.

The mountain kingdom of Lesotho faces a number of unique hurdles with regard to HIV and AIDS. The country is landlocked within South Africa, the epicentre of the pandemic, and because of limited job opportunities and high unemployment rates within Lesotho, many of its citizens work as migrant labourers in neighbouring South Africa.

Authorities in Pakistan have vowed to deal sternly with Taliban militants who have this month mounted a series of deadly attacks apparently aimed at weakening this country that has close links with neighbouring Afghanistan.

The Moors invaded and conquered much of the Iberian Peninsula in 711AD. By the time they were driven out of Granada in 1492, the Arabs had left an indelible racial and cultural imprint. Both the Spanish and Portuguese languages have a marked Arabic influence.

While a dispute between Argentina and Uruguay over a pulp mill simmers on, a new environmental conflict over a border river is taking shape, this time involving a hydroelectric dam between Argentina and Brazil.

Senior legislators from the G20 bloc of the world’s biggest economies launched an international commission in Washington Monday to help lay the political groundwork for a global deal on climate change in Copenhagen this December.

One of the nation’s leading legal rights groups is calling on the U.S. Congress to make major changes in the USA Patriot Act to reverse parts of the hurriedly passed law that have been found unconstitutional or have been abused to collect information on innocent people.

You could hear a pin drop and uncomfortable glances went round the room when the moderator of the debate invited contributions from the floor. A law student finally broke the silence, appealing for education to be a two-way street, so that homosexuals can 'help us to accept them.'

After almost a decade of fighting for self-regulation, the Zambian media may finally have its wishes entrenched with constitutional protection.