CLIMATE CHANGE: A Little Equality Could Save a Lot of Lives

When ministers and government officials meet at the end of this year for a critical U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen, they should bear in mind that the mortality rate for women during climate-related natural disasters is an average of 14 times higher than for men.

ECONOMY-CHINA: Human Rights Critics Silenced by Meltdown

If the global economic downturn is a crisis with a silver lining for cash-rich Chinese companies intent on bargain deals, it is equally so the image-conscious government whose human right critics have been silenced by the need to cooperate with Beijing on overcoming the recession.

GHANA: Report Warns of ‘Resource Curse’ Ahead of Oil Boom

The recent discovery of oil in Ghana could undermine its democratic development, warns the international aid agency Oxfam America and the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) in Ghana.

CARIBBEAN: Bank Scandals Add to Region’s Economic Woes

Caribbean leaders emerged from a one-day special summit on Wednesday night to announce new mechanisms to deal with some of the problems plaguing the region's financial sectors, occasioned not only by the ongoing global crisis, but by several homegrown scandals as well.

TRADE: Middle-aged Women Keeping Zimbabwean Economy Afloat

Her small tattered book is full of lists of orders for goods such as beer, maize-meal and chemicals. On another page are addresses and phone numbers of store managers while, on another, a list of names has been jotted down along with corresponding amounts.

MIDEAST: The Political Roads Lead to Tehran

The obvious objective of the first visit to the Middle East by the Obama administration's U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to contain the still potentially explosive situation in Gaza following January's Israeli offensive against Hamas, and to rescue the two-state solution policy in face of the emergence of a far-right administration in Jerusalem.

RIGHTS-TURKEY: Freedom of Expression Under Attack

As it aspires for full European Union membership, Turkey is still struggling with freedom of expression, raising questions whether it can ever join the EU or will simply remain a suspended bridge between East and West.

POLITICS-JAPAN: Donation Scam Setback for Main Opposition Party

The arrest of a top aide to opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa on Tuesday, for allegedly accepting illegal political donations, could not have come at a worse moment for his Democratic Party Japan (DPJ).

POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Democracy Under a Tree

It has already been dubbed "Pokok Demokrasi" or Democracy Tree and is set to enter the annals of folklore in Ipoh, capital city of Perak state.

HAITI: Stability May Rest in Donors’ Pockets

A series of crises in 2008 have pushed more Haitians into poverty and increased the potential for serious instability in the Caribbean nation of nearly 9 million, said the latest update briefing from the International Crisis Group (ICG).

SUDAN: Rights Groups Applaud Bashir War Crimes Warrant

Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, the first head of state to be indicted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court, now faces an arrest warrant issued Wednesday by the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.

POLITICS-US: Senate Committee Weighs “Truth Commission”

In a preview of the heated divisions likely be triggered by the formation of a "truth commission" to investigate detainee interrogation, warrantless wiretapping and other alleged violations during the administration of President George W. Bush, witnesses before a Senate committee Wednesday characterised such a body as either a "profoundly bad idea" or "critically important to avoiding the mistakes of the past."

CORRUPTION-US: How Wall Street Paid For Its Own Funeral

A new report says that Wall Street has only itself to blame for the misguided deregulation that led to the current deepening financial crisis.

LABOUR-PHILIPPINES: Meltdown – Women Most Vulnerable

Shaynar Bacon was working as a cashier in a shopping mall in Mindanao, southern Philippines, when she learned that an electronics manufacturing firm in Taiwan was looking for workers.

RIGHTS-PERU: “No Thanks” to Donation for Memorial Museum

Heduardo, one of the most scathing caricaturists in the Peruvian press, published a cartoon showing President Alan García more interested in a "museum of amnesia" than a proposed "museum of memory."

RIGHTS-US: Lawsuits Challenge Charity Blacklisting

In two court cases that could test the limits of the Barack Obama administration’s executive authority as well as its commitment to transparency, human rights lawyers are challenging the government’s right to use information obtained through warrantless wiretapping as evidence and to shut down charitable organisations without allowing them to defend themselves.

ECONOMY-JAPAN: Small, Medium Firms Hit by Credit Crunch

He was left devastated and robbed of his dream to open a restaurant in Tokyo after two Japanese banks refused to give him a small loan.

RIGHTS-US: El-Marri Lawyers Seek Supreme Court Review

Lawyers for imprisoned "enemy combatant" Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri are vowing to press the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case even though al-Marri was suddenly transferred to the civilian justice system after more than five years in solitary confinement in a military brig.

WORLD-ECONOMY: Not The End of Neoliberalism Yet

The economist and author Prof Patrick Bond warns that the optimism about the dawn of a post-neoliberal era is premature and that ‘‘a more dangerous and painful’’ period may be ahead before any real change to the current global economic regime will be possible.

RIGHTS-US: Few Safety Nets for Women of Colour

As hundreds of activists from around the world descend on the United Nations Monday for a major two-week meeting on women's rights and equality, the economic crisis here in the host country is continuing to have an especially heavy toll on women of colour.

MIDEAST: How to Aid Gaza and Not Hamas

"There's no doubt there's been a huge amount of damage done, including whole sectors of private sector buildings which have been razed to the ground and, in any event, given the numbers of people that have died, I find the conversation about proportionality not really a sensible conversation to have. What we've got to do is to find a way of ensuring this doesn't happen again." The pointed comment came from former British prime minister Tony Blair, special international envoy to the Middle East, during his first visit to Gaza after Israel's offensive against Hamas.