POLITICS: Economic Crisis Making for More Unstable World

The world has become a slightly more dangerous place in the past year, said the new Global Peace Index (GPI) released Tuesday, which points to the economic crisis as the main factor.

POLITICS: U.N. Women Peacekeepers in Short Supply

Even as U.N. peacekeeping operations in the world’s battle zones continue to expand, women soldiers, police and civilian support staff remain a small minority – something that sorely needs to change, U.N. officials say.

EDUCATION-URUGUAY: Teaching Kids Forced to Grow Up Early

Tough and aggressive, 13-year-old José is a leader among his peers, and his classmates steer clear of him when he’s in a bad mood. When IPS visited his school in the Uruguayan capital, he wasn’t in his sixth-grade classroom with the rest of the students, but alone on the patio, which his head hanging down.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Four Tough Nuts To Crack

The world is on track towards negotiating a solid deal in Copenhagen at the end of this year, Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate change official, told reporters at the opening of a 12-day conference in Bonn Monday.

RIGHTS: Historic Court Under the Spotlight in New Film

The International Criminal Court has struggled since its inception to realise its core mandate to prosecute the world’s worst human rights offenders, putting on trial propagators of genocide, war crimes and the inductors of child soldiers into civil conflict.

POLITICS-US: Eavesdropping Case Tests Obama Vows on Secrecy

Despite President Barack Obama’s formation of a new task force to review government secrecy, and an ongoing investigation into use of the so-called "state secrets doctrine", lawyers for the new administration refused last week to disclose information on the government’s use of warrantless wiretaps and backed legislation to block the release of photos of prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.

AFRICA-US: Growing Drug Trade Linked to Terror Groups

Drug trafficking was once thought to be a largely Latin American problem, but the international community increasingly finds itself fighting this phenomenon in Africa.

ECONOMY: 'Crisis Must Lead to Greater Voice for Workers'

The compensation for managers must be capped at 15 times that of workers, civil society groups demanded Sunday following a conference in Florence.

CHINA: Forget Tiananmen, Thus Spake Confucius

Tiananmen Square is history. Or at least that is the belief shared by many on the campus of China’s top university. Students at the distinguished Beijing University, or Beida – once a hotbed of political activism and now at the forefront of China’s attempts to project soft power around the world - no longer commemorate Jun. 4, 1989, when the Communist Party ordered a military assault on thousands of unarmed students protesting for democracy at Tiananmen Square.

ENERGY: Oil Economy Driving Growth of Controversial Tar Sands

A report from one of the world’s top energy consultancies says oil production in Canada’s tar sands could see a five-fold increase by 2035.

LEBANON: Legal Flaws Could Twist Election Result

When Lebanon heads to the polls Jun. 7 to decide whether the Hizbullah-led opposition alliance will unseat the ruling Western-backed coalition, voter anonymity could be compromised by shortcomings in the 2008 parliamentary election law.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: University Students Take On E-Waste

The University of São Paulo has opened Brazil's first government-run center for recycling electronic waste.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Invasive Plants Gain Ground

Cuban scientists have warned that this Caribbean island nation lacks an updated inventory of invasive plant species and sufficient information about the real damage they cause the ecosystems.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Oil Exploration Threatens Marine Resources

The oil exploration effort that the Honduran government plans for parts of the Caribbean coast endangers the marine areas of the Mesoamerican biological corridor, warned the Environmental Prosecutor's Office.

Ecobreves – CHILE: No to a Gas Tax Cut

Environmental groups in Chile oppose President Michelle Bachelet's decision to lower the maximum tax on gasoline until April 2010.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Orinoco Delta Now a Biosphere Reserve

The Orinoco Delta, Venezuela's youngest geological area at just one million years old, has been added to the network of 544 biosphere reserves of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

ECONOMY-CARIBBEAN: “We Are Not in Ordinary Times”

The news was not entirely unexpected. For Caribbean countries coming to grips with the ongoing global financial and economic meltdown, the diagnosis outlined by Dr. Compton Bourne, president of the region’s main lending institution, though bitter, was accepted as inevitable.

MEXICO: Indigenous Rape Victims Fight Military Impunity

The aberrations of Mexican justice were clearly visible in the cases of rape and torture allegedly committed by soldiers in 2002 against two indigenous women, Inés Fernández and Valentina Rosendo. But their experiences are not exceptional in rural areas of the southern state of Guerrero.

POLITICS-US: Implementing Af-Pak Strategy Is the Hard Part

With the strategic review for U.S. goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan now complete, the administration of President Barack Obama must shift to the more difficult task of choosing and – even more daunting – implementing policies that seek to quell the militant insurgencies in both countries, says a new report from a think tank here known to be close to the administration.

U.S.: NGOs Oppose Nearly 100-Billion-Dollar Pledge to IMF

A broad coalition of civil society groups, as well as some U.S. lawmakers, is fighting what they call a "blank cheque" from the U.S. to expand funding for the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

HEALTH-NEPAL: Baby Boom in Maoist Army

At the annual military parade of the People’s Liberation Army, Nepal’s ex-guerrillas, curious bystanders saw a young woman clad in military fatigues kiss and cuddle a baby before handing her back to an older woman.