News headlines in 2009, page 79

Of the tens of thousands of toxic sites affecting the health of 500 million people in the middle- and low-income countries of world, only 12 are being cleaned up, according to a new report.

Concerns have risen with the inauguration of the new government that Germany will cut back on its commitments on international development.

Three new international cooperation agreements channeled through the United Nations system in Cuba are aimed at strengthening food security, especially in the poorest parts of the country.

Mozambique’s incumbent president looks set to serve a second term of office as partial results of the country’s presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections are announced.

The revelation by the New York Times Wednesday that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, has long been on the payroll of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg of heavy dependence by U.S. and NATO counterinsurgency forces on Afghan warlords for security, according to a recently published report and investigations by Australian and Canadian journalists.

Spatula in hand, forensic scientist Israel Ticas carefully excavates a decomposed human foot protruding from a shallow grave in rough terrain in the mountains of Las Crucitas, close to Ciudad Arce in the west-central Salvadoran province of La Libertad.

Earlier this month, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon went to Washington to introduce 'As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen', his autobiography that, according to the Moon-owned Washington Times, 'recounts the joys and challenges, the teachable moments and the monumental experiences of his life - much of it spent as a spiritual leader.'

Even in the wake of the tropical storms that lashed the northern parts of the Philippines recently, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took time out to visit her home province.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) may be performing better during the current economic crisis than during the Asian crisis of the late 1990s, but it still has 'a long way to go'.

Athletes competing for Olympic gold speak to the imagination of most of us. Homeless people playing an international football tournament may be a less familiar sight. Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro will get a chance to see both.