EUROPE: Stealth Lobbyists Creep In
By David Cronin
BRUSSELS - The often cosy relationship between corporate lobbyists and the Brussels bureaucracy was illustrated in the past few weeks as several members of the European Parliament (MEPs) prepared to visit Peru.
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TURKEY: Ruling Party Challenges Closure
By Hilmi Toros
ISTANBUL - Facing closure by the Constitutional Court, Turkey's Islamic-rooted governing party has launched its formal defence, claiming that the case against the highly popular party and its leaders has no legal basis, and that it defends secularism despite charges that it plans to turn the country into an Islamic state.
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ICELAND: Road Threatens Heritage
By Lowana Veal
REYKJAVIK - Environmentalists are concerned that a proposed new road will threaten the ecology of Lake Thingvallavatn, Iceland's second largest lake.
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ANGOLA: Irish Rock Star Geldof Riles Tempers
By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON - Irish rocker and activist Bob Geldof’s statement that Angola is a country "run by criminals" unleashed a political storm that could have an impact on Portugal’s large investment interests in the largest of its former African colonies.
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DEVELOPMENT: Food Crisis Linked to Doha Deal
By Aileen Kwa
GENEVA - The issue of rising food prices was raised at the WTO's General Council meeting Wednesday, and for the first time, discussed in some detail. But there remains, as one African delegate put it, "a lot of confusion about the rising prices of commodities and the Doha Round. Somebody needs to demystify the links. The D-G (Director-General) is using this as a bait to catch us on concluding the Round as soon as possible."
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EUROPE: Still without a 'Coherent' Human Rights Policy
By David Cronin
BRUSSELS - More than 50 years after its inception, the European Union continues to lack a "coherent and hard-hitting policy to uphold and promote human rights around the world", a new report by the EU's only directly-elected body has complained.
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GREECE: Migrant Workers in Historic Strike
By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS - It was a day when migrant workers said they had had enough.
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RIGHTS: CIA Flights Haunt Romania
By Claudia Ciobanu
BUCHAREST - Romania has still not convincingly answered repeated calls from the European Commission and others to clarify allegations that it hosted CIA detention centres and that rendition flights passed through its territory.
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BOSNIA: A Tentative Rebellion Unrolls
By Zack Baddorf
SARAJEVO - It started with a murder.
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RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: 'My Daughter, the Terrorist'
By Tarjei Kidd Olsen
OSLO - In Sri Lanka's brutal civil war some rebel women end their lives as suicide bombers that have killed hundreds over the years. A Norwegian documentary film that follows two 24-year-olds training to do just this has enraged the Sri Lankan government, but raises important questions about the conduct of war and its consequences.
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