News headlines in 2009, page 72

They call her 'Marie Nerica', after a new breed of rice.

Almost 400 Indian fishermen continue to languish in Pakistani prisons despite having completed their prison terms. Their release has been hampered by tensions in the relations between their country and neighbouring Pakistan.

The USA Patriot Act, rushed into law by a panicky U.S. Congress in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, gave the government broad surveillance powers to spy on innocent citizens. But it also stipulated that three of its more controversial provisions should expire next month unless reapproved by lawmakers.

Sudarma Senevirathana’s teenage daughter is at an age when she can already be given the ‘rubella’ vaccine, administered free of charge by government health officials at schools.

Lahore, known to the world as 'the city of the live-hearted' has been in the grip of extreme fear since Oct. 15, the day when three suicide attacks took place here simultaneously. Suicide bombers targeted two police training centres and the regional office of the Federal Investigation Agency, leaving 17 people dead and 22 others injured.

Leila Khaled became an instant icon of the Palestinian struggle in 1969, when at 24 she was an operative in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacking of a Boeing 707, the first in a series of high-profile actions intended to put the Palestinians on the political map.

As the global financial crisis continues to ravage the fragile economies of the world's poorer countries, the United Nations is hosting a high-level international conference next month to boost South-South cooperation.

Farmers are complaining about a lack of technical assistance and the poor quality of seeds they've planted this year in the Kaolack region, Senegal's groundnut-producing area, 200 kilometres south of the capital Dakar.

A federal appeals court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought against a former U.S. attorney general by a Canadian citizen who sought damages for being unlawfully detained by U.S. authorities in New York and then secretly shipped to Syria, where he was imprisoned for a year and claims he was tortured.

Construction is expected to begin soon on a new highway across north-central Guatemala, the largest infrastructure project tackled so far by the government of Álvaro Colom.