News headlines in 2009, page 346

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s upcoming maiden trip to China this week has raised both expectations and apprehensions in Beijing.

Since being elected to office five months ago, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has often declared that Pakistan’s single biggest challenge stems from ‘religious’ militants.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez won Sunday's referendum with 54 percent of the vote, which will allow him to stand for reelection indefinitely. But he will have to exercise leadership over a country that is stubbornly split in two.

The first time I visited award-winning Northern Nigerian filmmaker Hamisu Lamido Iyan-Tama in prison, a week after his arrest, the former Kano State gubernatorial candidate seemed to be in high spirits.

With growing public support for a public investigation of crimes that may have been committed by the administration of former president George W. Bush in waging its 'global war on terror', policy makers and legal experts are deeply divided on how to proceed - and President Barack Obama seems ambivalent about whether to proceed at all.

Israel is toughening its negotiating stance with Hamas as the two try to hammer out a permanent ceasefire agreement.

With wild fish catches in sharp decline, aquaculture, which now accounts for nearly half of all seafood consumed, is expected to double production over the next two decades.

The possibility that French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner might have misused his public position in France to boost his profitable private business with prominent African dictators come at a time when the local authorities are dealing with numerous corruption affairs.

Was the foreign policy of George W. Bush an aberration in U.S. history, a turn away from the traditional guiding principles of U.S. foreign policy towards messianic ambitions of permanent supremacy and universal democracy?

Under pressure to address trade imbalances by boosting domestic demand, China has approved the handing out consumption coupons. The measure is free of protectionist overtones like the contentious 'buy American' in the U.S. economic stimulus bill.