The central focus of the WTO annual report - the tricky balance between the need to protect national production and the negative economic impacts of such measures during times of crisis - was actually chosen before the current meltdown, but turned out to be just what the doctor, or the world trade body, ordered.

In a signal victory for President Barack Obama and Defence Secretary Robert Gates, the U.S. Senate voted Tuesday evening to end production of an advanced fighter jet that many independent military analysts have long considered a wasteful boondoggle.

The rain - usually much desired because it is so scarce - has come in excess this year, destroying many crops. But in this farming district in far north-eastern Brazil, the impact of the heavy rainfall was less marked than in the past, thanks to the diversification of crops and productive activities.

An Argentine non-governmental organisation has warned that a mining consortium under scrutiny for polluting the environment has been funding public universities for the past two years, bringing into question the independence of any technical reports the universities may be asked to submit.

Duarnis Perez, a native of the Dominican Republic, became a U.S. citizen at 15 when his mother was naturalised. But he didn't know that meant he was also a citizen. He thought he was an illegal immigrant, and so did the authorities.

With the historical Friday Prayer sermon given by former president and current chair of the Council of Experts and Expediency Discernment Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Jul. 17, and the riposte by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei three days later, lines have been drawn in unprecedented ways in Iran.

The construction of a two billion dollar dam in Metolong, some 35 kilometres outside of Lesotho’s capital Maseru, is being welcomed by people in and around the city who will gain access to clean and safe drinking water when construction is completed in 2013.

A new poll finds that the populations of a majority of nations surveyed feel that their governments are not doing enough to address the global economic crisis. However, respondents are split over whether their governments should use protectionist measures to bring about recovery.

China has welcomed Obama administration’s efforts to lead a global movement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but it has spawned concerns in Beijing that international pressure to cap emissions could mount, thus slowing the pace of its economic growth.

Shockingly high levels of violence against women in Haiti forced the U.N. to send peacekeepers to the Caribbean country in 2004.