Suicide attacks hit two of Pakistan’s largest cities — thirty people are killed in a blast in near  Pakistani army headquarters in Rawalpindi, and two suicide bombers and a policeman are killed in a car bombing at a police checkpoint in Lahore.

French-Senegalese writer Marie NDiaye becomes the first black woman to win France’s top literary award, the Prix Goncourt, for her book Trois Femmes Puissantes (Three Powerful Women), about three women, each with one foot in France and the other in Africa.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic says he will appear at his war crimes trial in the Hague tomorrow after having boycotted last week.

Members of the Iranian opposition plan to use Wednesday’s 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran to renew their challenge to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The U.K.’s Telegraph reports that, in an act sure to anger the current regime, opposition leaders plan to apologise to the U.S. for the 1979 takeover.

Six U.N. staffers and two Afghan security guards are killed in an attack on their guest house in central Kabul. A Taliban spokesman takes credit, siting the U.N.’s involvement in Afghanistan’s presidential elections as the reason for the attack.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai and a suspected drug trafficker, has been on the CIA’s payroll for much of the past eight years.

Voters go to the polls in Mozambique’s fourth democratic election since a civil war ended in 1992. Incumbent President Armando Guebuza, whose economic reforms made Mozambique’s economy one of the fastest growing in the world at one point, is poised to win.

Radovan Karadzic continues to boycott his war crimes trial in the Hague, but the proceedings begin without him.

A French court convicts the Church of Scientology of fraud. Group leaders are fined and imprisioned, but the court stops short of banning the organization, registered as a religion in the U.S. but considered a sect in France.

Eight Afghan refugees, including five children and three women, drown off the Greek island of Lesbos. Ten others survive, all Afghans except for one Turkish national who is arrested on suspicion of human trafficking. Lesbos is a major point of entry for migrants hoping to make a new life in the European Union.

At least 14 Americans are killed in two separate helicopter crashes in Afghanistan, the largest number of Americans killed in a single day in Afghanistan in more than four years.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic boycotts the first day of his own war crimes trial in the Hague, forcing the judge to adjourn the case for the day and infuriating survivors who had traveled from Bosnia to see Karadzic face justice.

Juanita Castro, the younger sister of Fidel and Raúl Castro, says she collaborated with the CIA in the 1960s both from inside Cuba and after going into exile in Miami in 1964.

Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency inspect Iran’s newly-revealed nuclear plant near Qom.

Fifteen people are killed when a bus carrying passengers to a wedding hits an anti-tank mine in Pakistan’s tribal belt, seven die in a suicide bombing near an air force complex in the country’s northwest, and over a dozen are wounded in a blast outside a popular restaurant in Peshawar, in the latest of a wave of militant attacks that has left nearly 200 dead this month.

Meeting in the Slovakian capital Bratislava, NATO defense ministers agree to the broad counter-insurgency strategy for Afghanistan laid out by U.S. General Stanley McChrystal.

Fear of the swine flu closes 2,500 schools in Iraq.

The Vatican approves an initiative to bring Anglicans, some of whom are dismayed by their church’s acceptance of same-sex marriages and gay and female bishops, into the Catholic Church.

A double suicide bombing at the International Islamic University in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad kills seven people, including the two attackers.

Reporters Without Borders releases its annual Press Freedom Index. Topping the list are northern European countries such as Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Norway; those faring worst include China, Laos, Cuba, Burma, Iran, Turmenistan and North Korea. Eritrea, where no independent journalism is tolerated and 30 journalists are currently in prision, comes in dead last. The U.S. moves up 16 slots to rank 20th.

The U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission finds that thousands of votes for Afghan President Hamid Karzai were fraudulent, leaving Karzai’s share of the vote in the disputed August election at only 48% — not enough to avoid a runoff.

Forty-two people are killed as Iran is hit by the country’s worst suicide bombings in years. Iranian officials claim that the attack was launched from Pakistan with American and British involvement.

Prosecutors accuse Sudanese rebel leader Bahr Idriss Abu Garda of planning an attack that killed 12 African Union peacekeepers in the first Darfur-related case to reach the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

No one will be awarded this year’s $5 million Mo Ibrahim prize for good governance in Africa because the selection committee could not find a suitable candidate.

At least 85,000 Iraqis were violently killed between 2004 and 2008, according to figures released by the Iraqi goverment. Among the dead were 2,334 women, 1,279 children, 263 professors, 21 judges, 95 lawyers and 269 journalists.

Britain agrees to send 500 additional troops to Afghanistan, increasing the size of the British force from 9,000 to 9,500, on the condition that the Afghans and NATO allies also increase their commitment in the area.

Nearly 10,000 couples from more than 100 countries are married in a mass wedding officiated by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in Seoul, South Korea. The wedding is likely the last for Moon, 89, who is passing on the leadership of his Unification Church to his son.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Russia’s Foreign Minister to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. A senior Russian official says that further sanctions against Iran would be “counterproductive,” and Clinton agrees that “we are not at that point yet.”

Russia and China agree to a framework for the export of Russian oil and gas supplies to China. The deal is part of $3.5 billion worth of trade agreements signed at a meeting between leaders of the two countries in Beijing.

Romania’s Democratic Liberal Government falls after loosing a vote of no confidence in parliament; the first such collapse since the end of Communist rule in 1989.

South African police fire tear gas and rubber bullets as thousands protest demanding basic services such as sanitation, electricity and housing in several northeastern townships.

Thirty Afghan civilians are killed when their bus, traveling on the dangerous main road from Herat to Kandahar, hits a roadside bomb.

An E.U. report is expected to conclude that Georgia started last year’s war with Russia by attacking separatists in South Ossetia, but that Russia had set the stage by encouraging separatists in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgian territories recognized as sovereign nations by only Russia, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

After killing at least 240 people in the Philippines, Typhoon Ketsana moves on to Vietnam, where at least 32 people have died and 170,000 people have been urged to evacuate their homes.

Addressing world leaders gathered for a U.N. summit on climate change, President Obama declares that the U.S. is “determined to act,” and encourages unity on the issue, saying the world “cannot allow the old divisions that have characterized the climate debate for so many years to block our progress.”

China bans foreign tourists from Tibet ahead of the 60th anniversary of Communist rule in the country, which will be celebrated on October 1 with a military parade, fireworks, and a speech by President Hu Jintao.

Honduran security forces use tear gas to break up demonstrations outside the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, where deposed President Manual Zalaya has been since his surprise return to the country yesterday.

World leaders gather in New York this week for the U.N. general assembly; among them are new presidents of the U.S., Russia and China, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, attending for the first time. Issues to be discussed include climate change and nuclear proliferation.

President Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. general assembly on Tuesday, but does not have “grand expectations” for the meeting.

More than 140 rebels are killed as the Yemeni army fights back a major offensive in the northern city of Sadah. The clash is the bloodiest since Houthi rebels began fighting with goverment forces in 2004.

“As heart wrenching as it is informative…. You’ll have a pit in your stomach by the end of the show.”
–Families.com

WIDE ANGLE’s unprecedented, award-winning 12-year documentary project, Time for School, returns in 2009 with visits to seven classrooms in seven countries to offer a glimpse into the lives of seven extraordinary children who are struggling to get what nearly all American kids take for granted: a basic education. We started filming in 2002, watching as kids first entered school in Afghanistan, Benin, Brazil, India, Japan, Kenya and Romania, many despite great odds. Several years later, in 2006, we returned to film an update — and now, three years later, we travel to check in on our young teenagers who are making the precarious transition to middle school. Among the highlights: in Afghanistan we reunite with 16-year-old Shugufa, who resolutely remains in school despite the Taliban’s recent acid attacks on young women her age. “If they continue attacking schools, our country won’t progress. Without an education you can’t get anywhere,” says Shufuga, whose own education was delayed when her family lived in a refugee camp in Pakistan during years when the Taliban ruled her country. We also visit the biggest slum in Nairobi, Kenya, where 15-year-old Joab’s mother has died and his father has abandoned the family. We watch as, incredibly, Joab manages to stay at the top of his class while also raising and feeding his two younger siblings. And in the blazing desert of Rajasthan, India, we encounter Neeraj, 15, only to learn that she has been unable to realize her dream of making it to 10th grade: since our last visit her night school has closed, and she now helps support her family by grazing the livestock full-time while her brothers continue their education.

These children’s stories put a human face on the shocking fact that more than 75 million children are currently out of school; of these, two thirds are girls. One in four children in developing countries does not complete five years of basic education, and there are nearly one billion illiterate adults — one-sixth of the world’s people. WIDE ANGLE plans to continue revisiting all the children, and their peers and families, through 2015, the year they should graduate — and, not coincidentally, the U.N.’s target date for achieving universal education, a Millennium Development goal endorsed by all 191 members of the United Nations.

While each child in Time for School 3 has a unique story, taken together their lives tell an epic tale, shedding light on one of the most urgent and under-reported stories of our time.

AFGHANISTAN

Central Asia Institute
Promotes and supports community-based education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
The oldest organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women’s rights; has run clandestine literacy programs and home-based schools for women, and hopes to start building “free and modern” schools – especially for women – in the future.

Mercy Corps
Global relief and development organization that helps people build secure, productive and just communities, including agricultural schools in Afghanistan that teach modern farm practices.

BENIN

FADEC (Femmes Actrices de Développement Communautaire/Women Actors in Community Development)
FADEC works with Nanavi, the Beninese student in Time for School, and other girls in her village, to improve access to education. Email: Fadecd@gmail.com.

Batonga Foundation
Created by Beninese singer Angelique Kidjo to support both secondary school and higher education for girls in Africa.

BRAZIL

Two Brothers Foundation
Provides educational opportunities in Rocinha, one of the biggest favelas in Rio de Janeirio, through local and international community service and cultural exchange.

Viva Rio
One of the major NGOs in Rio de Janeiro that is fighting the growing armed violence, social exclusion and poor education in Rio’s lowest income neighborhoods, like Rocinha.

KENYA

Sumerian Foundation
Works to eliminate long term poverty to some of the world’s most vulnerable children through the building of social enterprise and development programs. In the past, the Sumerian Foundation has provided resources to Ayany Primary school, the school that Joab attends in Time for School.

Children of Kibera
Started by a Kibera-born U.S. high school teacher to provide educational opportunities for orphans and vulnerable children in Nairobi’s largest slum, Kibera.

Kenya Krew
After watching Time for School, a group of students from Lawrence Middle School in Long Island, NY, wanted to do something to help Joab, the Kenyan boy in the film, and his classmates at Ayany Primary School in Nairobi. After conferring with Joab’s teacher about the school’s needs, they decided to raise money to build a library for the school. They have raised $8000 towards their goal of $15,000. To contribute to this project, send your donation to the attention of Karen Weiner (the Lawrence Middle School teacher who sponsors the organization) at:
Lawrence Middle School
195 Broadway
Lawrence, NY 11559.
Include the words “Kenya Krew” in the memo line.

INDIA

Barefoot College
Operating on the principle that “solutions to rural problem lie within the community,” the organization seeks to improve, girls’ education, health & sanitation, rural unemployment, and environmental issues.

Pratham
Established in 1994 to provide education to the children in the slums of Mumbai city, Pratham now reaches millions of children living both in rural and urban areas, providing pre-school education, reading and literacy programs, vocational training, early childhood care, and urban learning centers.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Building Tomorrow
Building Tomorrow works with students in the U.S. to raise awareness and funds for the education of underserved children in sub-Saharan Africa.