As Hunger Strike Spreads, Obama Again Denounces Guantanamo
With at least 100 detainees now participating in a three-month-old hunger strike, U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday reiterated his earlier denunciations of the Guantanamo detention facility and...
View ArticleTaliban Show Patients No Mercy
Akbar Shah was sitting with his sick wife in the gynaecology ward of the Agency Headquarters Hospital in Bajaur Agency, a division of northern Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA),...
View ArticleJapan’s Aid Programme Takes a Selfish Turn
As Japan slips from its former top spot as the world’s biggest donor, experts here are worried about long-term changes in the country’s development assistance programme, which has played a crucial role...
View ArticleA Political Island Defies Europe
“Give gas” was the original name for the Goj motorbikers parade intended for Apr. 21, a day when Hungary’s large Jewish community commemorates the Holocaust in the Peace March. The Gojs (which means...
View ArticleGiving Women in Zimbabwe’s Informal Sector Rights
Mollin Siyanda, 46, a single mother of three from Harare’s low-income suburb of Hatcliffe, is scared of being arrested by the council police as she sells fruit, vegetables and second-hand clothes on...
View ArticleFrom Rags to Penury
India’s planners worry about ‘jobless growth’, but perhaps nothing illustrates this phenomenon better than a policy of handing over the collection and disposal of the capital’s refuse to large private...
View ArticleMigrants Tune in to Community Support
At the age of 23, Gao travelled to Thailand to escape intense fighting in his native Shan State in the east of Myanmar (Burma) and possible recruitment into the Shah army. “When I arrived in Bangkok, I...
View ArticleMay Day Marchers Spread Their Wings
More than 1,000 people marched under the brilliant San Francisco sun on May Day. Their signs, such as “Work in America/Live in America/Dream in America. Immigration reform now,” their songs, chants and...
View ArticleEcuador’s Indigenous People Still Waiting to Be Consulted
The Constitution of Ecuador adopted in 2008 establishes a broad range of rights for indigenous peoples and nationalities, including the right to prior consultation, which gives them the opportunity to...
View ArticleNot Safe for Rwandan Refugees to Return
The Congolese government is demanding a comprehensive strategy for a lasting solution for the repatriation of 127,537 Rwandan refugees estimated to be in the country. This is according to Congolese...
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Iranian Diplomat Confirmed Arrested in Tehran
More than seven weeks after the secretive arrest of prominent Iranian diplomat Bagher Asadi, an Iranian official confirmed his detention Thursday, although he declined to provide further details....
View ArticleU.N. Says Somalia Famine Killed Nearly 260,000
Almost 260,000 people, half of them young children, died of hunger during the last famine in Somalia, according to a U.N. report that admits the world body should have done more to prevent the tragedy....
View ArticleWaste Pickers in Colombia Earn Formal Recognition
Nora Padilla, one of the six winners of this year’s Goldman environmental prize, dedicates her days to organising informal recyclers in the Colombian capital, where the city’s eight million inhabitants...
View ArticleImminent Outbreak of Violence on Brazilian Amazon Estate
A fresh outbreak of violence between large landowners and landless peasants is looming in the Amazonian state of Pará, in northern Brazil. The large estate of Itacaiúnas, in the southeast of Pará, in...
View ArticleAzerbaijan’s Israel Diplomatic Trip Tweaks Tehran
Azerbaijan in late April crossed a self-imposed “red line” in its relations with southern neighbour Iran by dispatching Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov on a visit to Israel, Tehran’s arch-foe....
View ArticleU.S. Links Pesticides to Honey Bee Deaths, but Resists Ban
A major study by the U.S. government’s environment and agriculture agencies has suggested a strong link between the use of certain pesticides and the widespread deaths that have afflicted honey bee...
View ArticleHamas ‘Talibanising’ Gaza
The Islamist resistance group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, is being accused by its Palestinian Authority (PA) rivals in the West Bank of Talibanising Gaza and turning the coastal territory...
View ArticleRohingyas At Home and Nowhere
Rendered the nowhere people in their own homeland, thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are fleeing inhuman living conditions, lack of humanitarian aid and rising sectarian tensions in their...
View ArticleBeefing Up Disaster Response in Nicaragua
Nicaragua, which is prone to natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes and flooding, is confronting them with prevention measures and community drills and training in high-risk areas. The army’s...
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Sudanese Rebels Prepare for War
A rebel coalition in Sudan has declared war on the government less than a week after it attacked Sudanese forces. “Now there is a fully-fledged war in the new south of the north,” Yasir Arman, a leader...
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