News headlines in June 2009

It’s always the same: the TV audience is grief-stricken and indignant that he is no longer with us, but they continue to laugh along with him. Beloved Colombian comic Jaime Garzón was assassinated on Aug. 13, 1999, but he is still alive on the small screen.

Peru’s Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas attempted to promote 11 police officials for their performance in the brutal Jun. 5 crackdown on native protests against government decrees that opened up indigenous land in the Amazon jungle to oil, mining, logging and agribusiness companies.

The return this week of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to military-ruled Burma gives the mission an air of a high-stakes gamble. On the line is the world body’s credibility to make headway in a country where outside pressure to break a political deadlock is frequently ignored by the military junta.

In the midst of the international isolation faced by the new government named by the Honduran Congress to replace President Manuel Zelaya who was ousted Sunday, the courts issued an arrest warrant for the leader Tuesday.

On Monday, after a televised counting of the 10 percent of the ballot boxes, the body that oversees Iranian elections upheld the results of the disputed presidential elections.

The government's poor showing in Argentina's mid-term congressional elections Sunday has cleared the way for would-be successors to President Cristina Fernández in the 2011 presidential elections. Experts say that, at present, no potential rival has a clear lead.

Just a few days after being expelled from Honduras, the country that he was democratically elected to lead, Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales addressed the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday, witnessing the unanimous passage of resolution that demands his reinstatement.

Recession in petroleum-rich Middle Eastern countries is causing thousands of workers to return to their homes in southern Kerala triggering fears of a negative impact on the local economy.

Since its initial proposal in 2007, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) has been a divisive bill, passing in the House but not in the Senate. Now, the bill's original author, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, is working on a compromise that he hopes will pass.

Long-stalled efforts to consummate a free trade agreement (FTA) between the United States and Colombia may be gaining some momentum, despite persistent questions about Bogota's human rights record.