RIGHTS-MEXICO: Verdict Strengthens Dirty War Impunity

For decades, prosecutors, historians, activists and the families of victims of the political violence of the late 1960s and the 1970s in Mexico have blamed former president Luis Echeverría for the 1968 massacre of student protesters in Tlatelolco square in the capital and the disappearance of hundreds of people in the country’s "dirty war" on leftists and other dissidents.

MINING-AFRICA: Help Yourself, There's Plenty

The African continent is rich in natural resources; but the terms under which multinational companies exploit these resources mean that governments - and Africa’s people - enjoy only a tiny fraction of the benefits.

MEXICO: "Who Will Help Us?"

Pilar identified seven drug traffickers who allegedly gunned down 12 young people and a baby on a street in the picturesque tourist town of Creel in August in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. The authorities also know who they are. But not one of the suspects has been arrested.

US: Freezing Out Hamas No Longer Viable, Say Policy Heavyweights

A new report from a New York-based think tank and delivered to U.S. President Barack Obama by a signatory who is also a current adviser recommends that Washington forcefully reinsert itself into the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, calling for "a more pragmatic approach to Hamas."

EAST TIMOR: Case Backlog Worries New Prosecutor General

East Timor’s new prosecutor general, Ana Pessoa, says that she is ready to "strengthen’’ her office through ‘’first of all trying to understand why there are so many pending cases".

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/US-MEXICO: Clinton Visit Has Aura of Drug Intervention

The Barack Obama administration announced this week that it will augment already massive foreign aid to its southern neighbour in a bid to help Mexico fight cartels smuggling drugs into the U.S., as well as sending a series of high-level U.S. officials to Mexico to consult with their counterparts.

MEDIA-PERU: Women Outnumber, But Men Have the Power

At the start of the new academic year at Peruvian universities this month, women made up between 65 and 72 percent of students in first-year courses in communication and journalism departments, a phenomenon that is reflected in the growing presence of women reporters in newspapers all over the country.

POLITICS-US: Bailout Bitterness Tainting Obama’s Broader Agenda

Two months into his term, U.S. President Barack Obama’s ambitious campaign programme for sweeping "change" has been whittled down to a bid for incremental change, with opposition to some of his proposed broad reforms coming from unlikely places.

LABOUR-US: The Daddy Dilemma

More men are taking advantage of paternity leave or even quitting their jobs entirely to raise small children while their wives go to work, but the social stigma attached to fathers who take on roles traditionally viewed as female has been far slower to diminish.

MIDEAST: To be an Arab, and an Israeli

The cluster of blue-and-white Stars of David - Israel's national flag - had seen better days. In the wake of unseasonably heavy rain, they looked limp, anything but proud - in direct contrast to the mark their bearers hoped to make.

MIGRATION-US: Strained Detention System a Virtual Black Hole

The U.S. government has failed to uphold international human rights standards in its detention of immigrants and asylum seekers, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) said in a report released Wednesday.

CULTURE-ETHIOPIA: Old Master Challenges Film-makers to Look Within

Haile Gerima's film "Teza" may only have come to the world's attention when it won Africa’s highest prize in Ouagadougou on Mar. 7, but it has been a sensation in his native Ethiopia since it premiered in Addis Ababa at the start of the year.

POLITICS: Is Britain Trying to Recolonise the Caribbean?

In the wake of the British government’s decision to partially suspend the constitution of the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), politicians in this and other British Overseas Territories are worried that London has embarked on a process of "re-colonisation".

RIGHTS: Death Penalty Losing Favour Around the World

Though most of the world is moving a step closer to the abolition of the death penalty, death sentences continue to be handed out in the hundreds around the globe, says a new report from Amnesty International (AI).

HEALTH: HIV/TB Convergence Sparks Calls for New Strategy

On World Tuberculosis Day Tuesday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) released a report showing that new surveillance techniques and more complete country reports reveal the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) co-infection with HIV to be almost double what was previously thought.

POLITICS-US: Censorship Seen in Exclusion of Foreign Scholars

A leading legal rights group charged Tuesday that the Barack Obama Justice Department is using immigration law to censor debate by selectively barring U.S. entry to foreign scholars.

RIGHTS-US: Detainee Offered Freedom for Silence on Torture

A British court ruled Monday that U.S. authorities had asked a Guantanamo Bay detainee to drop allegations of torture in exchange for his freedom.

TRADE-TANZANIA: Crafts Charity Disproves Myths About Disability

After Joel Haule developed a crippling childhood disease that left him wheelchair-bound, his parents began calling him ‘‘Matatizo’’, the Kiswahili word for ‘‘problems’’.

POLITICS-US: Veils of Secrecy Lifting in Washington

As President Barack Obama’s Justice Department issued sweeping new guidelines to reverse the secrecy policies of former president George W. Bush, a federal judge ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to produce unedited summaries of some 3,000 documents related to its admitted destruction of 92 videotapes of prisoners being subjected to extremely harsh interrogation techniques.

MIDEAST: Disputes Coming to a Head

Key issues in conflict between Israelis and Palestinians are all coming to a head. But, even if these immediate issues are resolved, in any event, the conflict itself and an overriding diplomatic paralysis threaten to take long-term hold and to stymie all efforts to move the conflict onto a peace track any time soon.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Supermarkets Promote Eco-Friendly Shopping Bags

The Brazilian supermarket chains Bompreço, Hiper Bompreço and TodoDia, concentrated in the nine states of the country's Northeast region, have begun discount programs in their 131 stores for shoppers with reusable or returnable bags.