News headlines in 2009, page 378

Hajah Kamara's life of violence began when she was not yet a teenager. After rebels butchered her father and pregnant mother in their Voinjama home, they forced her to become a ‘wife’ and a fighter in their warring faction.

Exasperated by what it regards as 'a continuing pattern of evasiveness and denial in Pakistan's response to the terrorist attack on Mumbai', India seems to be fashioning a two-pronged approach towards Islamabad to get it to act firmly against terrorist networks based on its soil.

Israel's relentless air attacks on a besieged Gaza, which have killed over 1,000 Palestinians and destroyed hundreds of homes, continue to take place away from the gaze of the international news media.

Young voters were an important factor in Barack Obama's victory last Nov. 4, but will their new political enthusiasm stand the test of time?

The social diversity and broad range of thinking among Catholics is conspicuously absent from the Sixth World Meeting of Families taking place in the Mexican capital this week, say observers.

Forecasts that Brazil's grain harvest will be down by 5.9 percent this year and the announcement of an accumulated fall in industrial output of 7.9 percent in October-November 2008 have pricked the balloon of traditional new year optimism in this country.

Arson attacks and killings have shut down girls’ schools and brought a thriving entertainment industry to its knees in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Eighteen U.S. veterans kill themselves every day. More veterans are committing suicide than are dying in combat overseas. One in every three homeless men in the United States has put on a uniform and served his country. On any given night, the U.S. government estimates 200,000 veterans sleep on the street.

As Israel’s assault on Gaza continues into a third week, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries remain distressed on two fronts -- mounting Arab anger over Palestinian causalities and concern over Tehran and Tel Aviv using Hamas to settle their differences.

'The war isn't yet over, but it's the beginning of the final chapter,' said Eytan Ben-Eliyahu, former Israeli air force chief, on Israel Television Wednesday night. 'This is the crunch moment,' he added.