News headlines in 2009, page 358

The United Nations is urgently appealing for 613 million dollars to aid more than a million desperate civilians in the ruins of Gaza, where schools, hospitals, houses, factories and even farmland were obliterated during the three-week assault by Israeli air and ground forces.

A powerful coalition of civic organisations is calling for a complete overhaul of the legal framework of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to force it to fulfil its public broadcasting mandate.

The Brazilian government, and its Environment Ministry in particular, accepted a risky bet by agreeing to voluntary goals for curbing deforestation in the Amazon, giving the country greater weight in the global talks on fighting climate change.

A prominent law professor says the U.S. Defence Department is issuing questionable data on the number of Guantanamo detainees who have been released 'and then returned to the battlefield' because the government 'is now in a position where they have to find some bad guys - even if they have to invent them by naming people who were never there'.

Twenty-five centuries ago, ancient Athenians set aside part of their agora, the central public plaza, as a place where people seeking temporary work and others seeking workers could meet.

Apo Aguila, a computer programmer, moved to Singapore in 2005, frustrated with the news that Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had allegedly cheated in the 2004 presidential election.

Despite declarations of victory by Israel, the military assault on the Gaza Strip failed to achieve its stated aims, many analysts say. The assault, and even its exceptional brutality, may only have vindicated the notion of resistance among the Arab public.

Despite loud opposition, the Maoist-led coalition government of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has vowed to push through an ordinance to resolve the cases of hundreds of people ‘disappeared’ during the decade-long people's war waged between Maoist rebels and the forces of the former monarchy.

Despite widespread accusations of war crimes by Israel, there is growing scepticism of any Israeli leader being brought before an international tribunal for the killings of civilians and the targeting of schools and medical facilities during the 22-day conflict in Gaza last month.

Almost exactly 30 years ago the U.S.-backed dictator, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, fled his country, never to return. Shortly after his departure and the subsequent collapse of the monarchy, the Islamic Republic of Iran was born.