SYRIA: U.S. Moves Closer to Call for Regime Change

Amidst growing calls in Congress for stronger measures to effect "regime change" in Syria, the administration of President Barack Obama is escalating its rhetoric against President Bashar Al-Assad.

CHINA: Microbloggers Launch Long March to Freedom

China’s rapidly growing legion of microbloggers is proving a worthy foe against ongoing government efforts to monitor, influence and censor information on the country’s vast Internet. Government efforts have failed to curb an outpouring of anger and grief in the wake of the recent Wenzhou train disaster.

Fukushima Clouds Hiroshima Anniversary

Matashichi Oishi, 78, a radiation victim from Bikini Atoll, the site of a U.S. hydrogen bomb test in 1954, will make his annual lone visit this week to commemorate the Aug. 6 anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima 66 years ago.

COLOMBIA: Native Reserve Braces Itself as Conflict Escalates

Sitting outside her small shop, high in the mountains in the Tacueyó indigenous reserve in southwest Colombia, Liliana Alarco tries to hold back tears as she recalls the day her young son was injured.

Statistics show that more than fifty thousand Zambians die of malaria every year.

Statistics show that more than fifty thousand Zambians die of malaria every year. The National Malaria Control Centre says the disease accounts for more than a third of hospitalisations and outpatient visits in the southern African country.

MEXICO: Microloans from Distant Lands a Mouse Click Away

Norma Isela from the city of Piedras Negras in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila needs 500 dollars to expand the merchandise inventory in her business selling shoes by catalogue and to broaden her offer of clothes and accessories. So far she has managed to raise 45 percent of that amount.

ZIMBABWE: Women Seeking Justice Face Archaic Rules and Discrimination

The four armed robbers who gang raped her may be serving time for their crimes, but six years later justice has turned out to be a myth for Mildred Mapingure.

Water as Basic Human Right Has a Market Price, Says U.N. Chief

As the 193-member General Assembly commemorates the first anniversary of its landmark resolution pronouncing water and sanitation to be a basic human right, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon triggered a political controversy last week when he implicitly declared that even human rights have a market price.

No Let-Up in Karachi Violence

There has been more violence in the Pakistani city of Karachi, where at least 42 people have been killed since Monday.

ARGENTINA: Worker Cooperatives Reduce “Hard-Core” Unemployment

During the social and economic collapse of 2002-2003, the Argentine state encouraged the formation of workers' cooperatives, which helped mitigate the worst effects of the crisis, reduced hard-core unemployment, and now as independent, democratic, worker-controlled organisations are providing services to the public and private sectors.

Q&A: “The Threat of Default Was a Crisis for Wall Street, Not Workers”

After weeks of political wrangling over a budget proposal to settle the country's 14-trillion-dollar debt, U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday signed into law a bill that would slash 2.1 trillion dollars from the deficit over the next decade.

U.S.: Assault on Reproductive Health Services Shifts to States

With Republican-led efforts to divert funding from the reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood stumbling in Washington, the battle has moved to the states, with mixed results.

MOROCCO: Arab Spring Haunts Flexible King

In spite of an amendment to the constitution, early general elections planned next October, and numerous social and economic reforms, the Moroccan monarchy may not survive the Arab Spring, activists say.

NORTH KOREA: Food At Last for the Hidden Hungry

"Even if 100,000 people die of starvation in North Korea, foreigners working there will not see it," says a humanitarian worker who spent three years in the impoverished, communist country.

U.S. Muslims More Tolerant, Opposed to Violence than Other Faiths

Muslims in the United States express greater tolerance for members of other faiths than any other major religious group, according to a major new survey and report released here Thursday by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center.

HEALTH: Battling Hepatitis in West Africa

West African health experts are calling for governments to take the prevalence of hepatitis B and C more seriously, and to act to reduce the cost of treatment as part of more effective control of the disease.

SOMALIA: U.S. Greenlights Aid to Shabaab-Controlled Areas

The Barack Obama administration promised Tuesday that the U.S. would not prosecute relief agencies for delivering aid to parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamist insurgent group al- Shabaab, despite concerns that unrestricted aid in the failed state would be diverted to the wrong hands.

CUBA: Castro Says Migration Policy to Be Eased

Cuban President Raúl Castro’s announcement of coming changes to migration policy appears to be the result of repeated demands by the population for freedom to travel, a right ensnared for decades in the Cuba-United States conflict.

Palestinian Bedouin a Besieged Minority of the Minority

Israeli policies are destroying the livelihoods of Bedouin communities in the occupied West Bank and the Negev in southern Israel, activists and aid workers warn.

JAPAN: Record Radiation Levels at Fukushima Nuclear Plant

Record levels of radiation have been recorded at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant reactor, just months after the nuclear accident resulting from the earthquake and tsunami in March.

Syrian Crackdown Shows no Respite

Syrian troops have again advanced in the central city of Hama, taking up new positions a day after activists said government forces killed 24 people throughout the country on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.