News headlines in 2009, page 76

Every year, Robert Assalé, a farmer at Tangamourou in the Bondoukou region in east-central Côte d'Ivore, produces an impressive amount of yams. He harvested 30 tonnes in 2007, 42 tonnes in 2008 and has almost surpassed 50 tonnes this year.

Transsexuals in the Gulf call Bahraini lawyer Fawziya Janahi 'guardian angel'. She is the Arab world's only female lawyer who takes up cases on behalf of clients who want to change their sex.

An ascendant China that ignores human rights in Tibet and Xinjiang, poses a danger to world peace, say Nobel laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Jody Williams.

An ascendant China that ignores human rights in Tibet and Xinjiang, poses a danger to world peace, say Nobel laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Jody Williams.

With the annual monsoon rains ending, there is a growing fear among the Karen ethnic minority living along military-ruled Burma’s eastern border of a dry season offensive. The most vulnerable are villagers residing in the vicinity of the controversial Hat Gyi dam.

Global health and U.S. AIDS activists are hailing President Barack Obama's announcement Friday that the government will end a 22-year-old ban on the entry into the United States of HIV-positive visitors.

Investing in the sustainable management of ecosystems and curbing environmental degradation greatly improves the capacity of nations to adapt to climate change, according to a study carried out in 16 countries by two environmental organisations.

Following months of dithering on the part of the U.S., a delegation from the U.S. State Department brokered a deal Thursday between the ousted and interim governments of Honduras.

International human rights groups have raised concern over a proposed non-binding resolution in the U.S. House Representatives which would call on the White House to oppose any future endorsement or consideration of Judge Richard Goldstone's 'Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict'.

The United Nations, which is pursuing a proposal for 'a world without nuclear weapons', will soon turn its attention to another new goal in the field of disarmament: creating a legally-binding treaty on conventional arms.