News headlines in 2009, page 98

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, circumstances leading to that landmark event and what really happened behind the scenes remain a subject of debate. Equally controversial is what the fall of the wall brought in its wake.

Stephen Harper's ruling Conservative government has managed to muddy the ideological right-wing aspects of his political agenda to stay in power in Canada without alienating his western and rural base of moral and social conservatives.

The symbolism of Beijing dispatching its second top leader for celebrations with the reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il almost at the same time as Washington was deciding to break a tradition by refusing the Dalai Lama a meeting with the U.S. President last week has not been lost on observers here — keen to glimpse ever more signs of China's rise.

An increasingly isolated and unpopular Palestinian Authority (PA) has again made a 180-degree turn in the Goldstone report fiasco as it tries to fend off mounting criticism from all and sundry, including its own organisation.

Immigrants and foreigners were again targeted through the election campaign last month by right-wing politicians looking to win votes through racist statements.

Ask food experts whether it is in the interest of well-fed people in wealthy countries to fight hunger, and most will say: Yes. But ask whether we should tell them, and the answer you are likely to get is: maybe not.

For generations, Pakistan's southern Waziristan region has been a launching pad for insurgent military operations in Afghanistan

'It was a little bit scary,' says Dessima Williams, describing how the two weeks of United Nations climate change negotiations ended here on Oct. 9. 'Our concerns need to be heard more.'

In the week of Nobel Prize announcements, the most intriguing comment from the Middle East came not, as one might have expected, as a straight reaction to the shock of U.S. President Barack Obama being awarded this year's Peace Prize.

Clashes between Israeli security forces and protesting Palestinians have subsided as several hundred Muslims agreed to evacuate Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque following a deal brokered by the Jordanian Embassy in Tel Aviv Saturday.