TRINIDAD: Critics Accuse Govt of Wanting to Curb Press Freedom

The Trinidad and Tobago government is finding itself against the wall amid allegations that it is attempting to curb press freedoms in this oil rich twin island republic.

RIGHTS-US: Struggle to Reform Draconian NY Drug Laws Continues

Before making the biggest mistake of his life, Anthony Papa lived a normal life with his wife and seven-year-old daughter, working in his own radio repair shop in the Bronx. He’d never gotten into any trouble with the law and took pleasure in simple things, like bowling.

MIDEAST: There Just may Have to be a Partner

"We have no partner," has been the mantra of successive Israeli governments, both right-wing and centre, ever since the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifadah in September 2000 in wake of the failed Camp David summit. That was the last time Palestinians and Israelis saw each other as potential peace partners.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: New Law on Environmental Education

After reaching broad consensus with civil society organizations, the Honduran national Congress last week approved the first Law on Environmental Education.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Progress on Standards for Limiting Air Pollution

The Chilean government revealed the main characteristics of its bill for regulating the concentration of particulate matter in the air, with a diameter of less than 2.4 micrometers (one-millionth of a meter), the most harmful to human health.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Cane-Based Fertilizer Improves Yields

The bio-fertilizer Fitomás-E, a sugarcane derivative that Cuba began producing this year, boosts yields of several types of crops and improves soils, according to officials from the farm sector.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Polluting Pig Farms Shut Down

The 43 pig farms that still operate in the Lake Valencia watershed in northern Venezuela will have to stop soon and retool for some other activity or move to a different site - in order to reverse contamination caused by the livestock waste.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Seized Lumber Sold to Compensate Jobless

Brazil's ministries of Environment and Social Development will compensate workers who lost their jobs due to shutdowns of illegal charcoal factories and logging companies. They will be paid with revenues from sales of the seized lumber.

AFRICA: Raising the Profile of Gender-Based Violence

Imagine you are a journalist; you get a tip for a story about a sexual assault on a ten-year-old girl, and pitch it to your editor.

MIDEAST: Prison Toughens Palestinian Women

In her office at the Bethlehem women's counselling centre, Khawla Al-Azraq recounts her memories from Israeli prison as vividly as if they were yesterday: the routine physical and psychological abuse, the nightly room searches, the hunger strikes and other collective actions in protest against their conditions, and the intense study sessions with her fellow prisoners.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Family Planning: Expand Role For Private Sector

Dwindling donor support in the face of rising contraceptive demand, combined with diminishing government budgets could make already widespread shortfalls in the provision of contraceptives worse. African reproductive health experts are suggesting that the private sector could be the key to filling the gap.

POLITICS: Rights Groups Appeal For UN Investigation of Rendition

Charging that the U.S. government was complicit in the forced disappearance of an influential Muslim scholar four years ago, human rights groups in the U.S., the U.K., and Switzerland have asked the U.N. to investigate.

RIGHTS-SUDAN: ‘We Really Need Some Political Will’

The civil war in Darfur, a six-year conflict that has killed up to 300,000 Sudanese civilians thus far, is now virtually out of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s hands.

PAKISTAN: Ruined Farmers Say Children Won't Go to School

Fertile Swat's famous orchards of peach, plum and apple were just starting to ripen when the Pakistan military launched an air and land attack on Taliban fighters in end-April, uprooting tens of thousands of civilians.

RIGHTS: Outspoken Activists Defend Africa’s Sexual Diversity

The second World Outgames, held in the Danish capital, offered up a veritable smorgasbord of sport, politics and arts while celebrating sexual and gender diversity. But it also reminded participants that bigotry against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, sometimes culminating in violence, remains a scourge across the world.

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Wheeling and Healing

Every weekday morning, a stylish procession leaves the offices of MaAfrika Tikkun NGO in Delft, Cape Town; bumps and jolts through the gravel entry gates; then hits the tar and scatters into every corner of the township...

MIDEAST: Hope Now Advances to Autumn

Much of the world is side-tracked into the summer holiday mood, but the Obama Administration consistently stresses it won't allow its Middle East peacemaking effort to be side-tracked: We'll soon be hitting full stride, is the constant White House message.

HEALTH-AFGHANISTAN: Patients at Private Doctors' Mercy

Thirty five-year-old Habibulah Khan walks out of a private clinic in the Afghan capital, covered in dust and looking dog-tired.

HEALTH-AFGHANISTAN: Private Care – Designed to Make Money

Forty five-year-old Rahima thought she was going to die. Her family had checked her into Shenuzada, a private hospital in Makroyan in the Afghan capital, for an operation on her abdomen.

CARIBBEAN: Returning to the IMF, on Their Own Terms

In 1995, then Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson had a few choice words for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). "Goodbye, ta-ta, au revoir," he said.

MEDIA: U.S. Rights Groups Condemn Closure of Venezuelan Radio Stations

Several U.S. rights groups condemned the closure of 34 radio stations, as well as the proposal of restrictive media legislation, by Venezuelan authorities Monday.