Canada: Raising vegetables under the midnight sun
5 September 2008 - Inuvik, a town in Canada's Northwest Territories, has turned a former ice hockey arena into an oasis of vegetables and flowers in a community greenhouse. The building is North America's northernmost commercial greenhouse, and all but a necessity for anyone interested in eating a fresh vegetable in Inuvik that has not been shipped in from a warmer climate -- at a startlingly high cost. The greenhouse plays an educational role by teaching people about healthy foods they would normally only see in their canned or frozen form. (more)

Cyprus' rival leaders upbeat after new peace talks
5 September 2008 - Cyprus' rival Greek and Turkish leaders started new peace talks Wednesday and said they hoped for a deal soon aimed at reuniting an island divided by war 34 years ago. Cyprus -- an island of fewer than a million inhabitants -- has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded in response to a coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece. Prospects of progress were raised by repeated commitments made by Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat toward finding a solution. (more)

Iraq to bring expatriates home from Jordan
5 September 2008 - Iraq's envoy to Jordan says Baghdad will send planes and buses to bring home 520 Iraqis who fled to Jordan after the US-led invasion in 2003. Ambassador Saad al-Hayyani says the Iraqis asked for 'help to return' after security improvements in Iraq. He says no one is being forced to return. Some 13,000 Iraqis have returned in recent months. (more)

Iraq: UN seeks World Heritage status for Iraqi marshes
5 September 2008 - The United Nations launched a plan on Friday to have an ancient wetland in southeast Iraq listed as a World Heritage Site. The UN Environment Program (UNEP) said the Marshlands were of cultural and ecological significance. Fed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Marshlands are spawning grounds for Gulf fisheries and home to rare bird species. They also provide a resting spot for thousands of wildfowl migrating between Siberia and Africa. Some also think they are the Biblical Garden of Eden. (more)

Libya's relations with the US - Chronology
5 September 2008 - Top US diplomat Condoleezza Rice arrived in Tripoli on Friday on the first visit by a US secretary of state to Libya since 1953. The following is a chronology of recent relations between Libya and the United States. (more)

Libya: US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice arrives on historic visit
5 September 2008 - Top US Diplomat Condoleezza Rice arrived in Tripoli on Friday on the first trip by a US secretary of state to Libya since 1953. Rice was set to meet Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi during her brief trip, which Washington hopes will end decades of enmity. (more)

Markets in Argentina react positively to news it will pay US$6 billion Paris Club debt
5 September 2008 - Argentina will pay its entire US$6.7 billion debt to the Paris Club of lending nations, President Cristina Fernandez said Tuesday, shoring up sagging investor confidence and opening the door to needed new capital. Markets reacted positively to the news and bond prices rallied. The Paris Club is an umbrella group of wealthy creditor nations including the Germany, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, and the US (more)

Russia gives monitors access to Georgia buffer zone
5 September 2008 - International military monitors on Thursday entered a Russian buffer zone inside Georgia for the first time since a war last month over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russia has previously rebuffed pressure from the West to allow monitors into the area. (more)

Sao Paulo cane growers set date to ban burning - Brazil
5 September 2008 - Independent sugar cane suppliers in Brazil's top producing state, Sao Paulo, signed an agreement with the state's government on Thursday setting a date to stop cane burning, Brazil's agriculture ministry said. Burning in flat areas will end by 2014 and in hilly areas by 2017 -- well ahead of the targets of 2021 and 2031 for flat and hilly areas, respectively. The industry sees the deal as a step forward in protecting the sector against environmental concerns raised by international clients. (more)

Stymied by sums? Indian students swear by Vedic maths
5 September 2008 - Ten-year-old Deep Shah can mentally multiply 999 by 2,300 within seconds, but he insists he's no child prodigy, just a good student of Vedic maths. Vedic maths, derived from ancient Hindu scriptures called the Vedas, claims to enable students to calculate complex sums faster and in a much simpler way, a skill thousands of students are clamouring for in India's highly competitive school system. (more)

Thousands cheer Ethiopian obelisk restoration
5 September 2008 - Thousands of Ethiopians on Thursday cheered the long-awaited restoration of the 1,700-year-old Axum obelisk to its original site in the country's north. The obelisk is considered a symbol of African civilization and is a remnant of the ancient kingdom of Axum, which ruled the region from about 400 BC into the 10th century. Italy took the obelisk in 1937 on the orders of dictator Benito Mussolini. Italy, which occupied Ethiopia from 1936-1941, returned it in 2005, after demands by Ethiopia's government. (more)

US Secretary of State to dine in Libya leader Gadhafi's tent in historic visit
5 September 2008 - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that her historic visit to former pariah state Libya proves that the US never writes off another nation forever. Rice is the highest-ranking American official to visit the North African country in more than a half-century. She will meet over dinner with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, whom President Reagan once called a 'mad dog' and other US leaders have called a terrorist. White House press secretary Dana Perino said Friday in Washington that the Bush administration hopes to announce a new ambassador there soon. 'I look forward to hearing the leader's world view,' Rice told reporters. 'It's a beginning, it's an opening. It's not, I think, the end of the story,' she said. (more)

US suspends sanctions against Belarus
5 September 2008 - The US administration has suspended some economic sanctions against this former Soviet nation, the US Embassy said Friday. A US embassy spokesman said the US Treasury Department has suspended its ban on US companies dealing with two Belarusian companies, Lakokraska and Polotsk Steklovolokno. The move follows the release last month of several opposition activists by Belarusian authorities. Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Popov hailed the US decision as a 'step in the right direction'. Other sanctions against the government of Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko remain. (more)