ASIA: ‘Post-Disaster Psychosocial Support a Must for Children’

When disaster strikes, acute stress disorders, especially among children, may follow. Yet the need for early psychosocial interventions is often overlooked, if not ignored.

RECESSION AND RECOVERY: Diamonds Are for the Poor – Part 3

Diamonds haven't been among the first concerns at the World Social Forum these last 10 years. But through the recession and the still tottering recovery, a new sparkle in that business is pointing the way to a brighter world that is also better in a WSF sort of way.

RECESSION AND RECOVERY: Cities Going One Way, Nations Another – Part 2

Some signs are emerging of a new trend shown up by the recession: local governments (and the people) are going one way, national ones another.

RECESSION AND RECOVERY: The Lucky Are Unemployed – Part 1

The agreed, if dubious, solution to the financial crisis was to get people and governments - in the richer countries - to borrow more in order to spend more. What is not in doubt is the growing numbers of people who will be able to neither borrow nor spend.

POLITICS: Iraqi Body Softens Stance on Banned Candidates

A decision by Iraq's controversial Accountability and Justice Commission (AJC) Monday to remove 59 candidates from a list of over 500 candidates banned from running in the March parliamentary elections appears to be a sign that the AJC is softening its stance following widespread domestic opposition and a visit by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden to Baghdad last week.

Rags to Riches

From waste, to wealth, to world class - all this achieved in Payatas, the site for one of the Philippines' largest dumpsites that is also home to thousands of families. Before, the women simple wanted to put food on the table, so they made rugs out of scrap cloth, unearthed from the garbage. Now, through Rags2Riches Inc, a social business enterprise that has brought together fashion designers, marketers and entrepreneurs, thee women are creating high-end designer fashion masterpieces and home accessories that are ethical and eco-friendly. This is produced by Probe Media Foundation together with IPS Asia-Pacific'

COTE D’IVOIRE: Banana Producers Turn To Regional Markets

Twelve thousand people working on Côte d'Ivoire's banana plantations face uncertainty as the European Union begins implementing a new agreement governing tariffs on bananas.

HAITI: Military Playing Large Role in Relief Efforts

As international attention turns to the long-term reconstruction of earthquake-stricken Haiti, U.N. officials pledged that the Haitian government would have full involvement and authority over the process.

RIGHTS-US: Indefinite Detention “Defies Common Sense”

U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to detain 47 of the just-under 200 remaining prisoners at Guantánamo without trial indefinitely is drawing scorn from legal experts and human rights advocates, who charge that the government simply does not have enough evidence to convict the detainees it says cannot be tried but are "too dangerous to release."

CAMBODIA: ‘Abuse Rampant in Drug Detention Centres’ – Human Rights Watch

A staff member "would use the cable to beat people. On each whip, the person’s skin would come off and stick on the cable," said M’noh*, 16, of his detention in Choam Chao Youth Rehabilitation Centre, a government-run facility for drug dependents in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Coral in Danger

Increasing acidity in the waters off the Caribbean coast - an effect of global warming - is hurting the coral reefs of the Islas de la Bahía, report officials from the Honduran Secretariat of Environment.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: A Biodegradable Future

As they become more widely produced, biodegradable plastics will replace synthetic polymers, Angel Romo, researcher at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), told Tierramérica.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Biodiesel Beats Goal by Three Years

Diesel fuel used in Brazil is a five-percent mix of biofuel as of January 1 this year, reaching the goal set by the National Biofuel Program, begun in 2005, three years ahead of time. Until now, the mix was three percent.

RIGHTS: Expulsions From EU Rise Sharply

The number of asylum-seekers and other migrants expelled from the European Union in joint operations between its governments has grown three times in as many years, IPS has learned.

RIGHTS: Whistleblower Challenges Guantanamo “Suicides”

Is the administration of President Barack Obama concealing evidence suggesting that three suicides at Guantanamo Bay were not suicides at all?

DEVELOPMENT: Hunger Feeds More Hunger

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was way off the mark when he wrote the famous line "what does not destroy me, makes me stronger" - at least when it comes to hunger.

POLITICS-UGANDA: Sharing the National Cake

Their caricatures show great wealth and status, being driven in flashy four-wheel drives surrounded by bodyguards, and receiving benefits including mansions, cars, medical care and travel and sitting allowances. They are treated as Very Important Persons.

ENVIRONMENT-NEPAL: Slowly, Vulture Numbers Picking Up

Dhan Bahadur Chaudhary, an ornithologist, grew up with vultures in his native Nawalparasi in western Nepal. He and his neighbours were used to seeing vultures flying overhead, feeding on the carcasses, and sunbathing near the rivers.

MIDEAST: Mayhem in Gaza, Relief in Haiti

A week after the devastating Haiti earthquake, Israelis watched proudly as their TV channels showed the New York Fire Department rushing two young boys, extricated from the rubble of a building, to a field hospital set up by the Israeli army in Port-au-Prince.

LAOS: Getting Women in the News Takes Much More than Policy

Women’s empowerment may be a key policy of the Lao government, but this is far from obvious in this South-east Asian country’s newspapers and publications, many of which usually give more space to government pronouncements by male officials and pass on questionable stereotypes of women in their reportage.

MIDEAST: Civil Society Takes On Israeli Settlements

Salam Fayyad turned civil society activist this week. In Salfit, on the West Bank, the Palestinian prime minister threw onto a giant bonfire goods made in Israeli settlements.