KYRGYZSTAN: Fast Melting Glaciers Threaten Biodiversity

Kyrgyzstan's glaciers are receding at what scientists say is an alarming rate, fuelled by global warming. And while experts warn of a subsequent catastrophe for energy and water security for Kyrgyzstan and neighbour states downstream reliant on its water flows, devastation to local ecosystems and the effects on plant and wildlife could be just as severe.

DEATH PENALTY: Execution for Drug Offences Challenged

Two Georgian women are facing the death sentence in Malaysia in a case that human rights campaigners say has highlighted worries over the continued imposition of capital punishment for drugs offences.

Fake Medicines may Kill a Million a Year

Central and Eastern Europe is facing "significant challenges" in combating a multi-billion euro, and often lethal, trade in fake medicines, security and pharmaceutical groups have warned.

EUROPE: For Women, East Is Backward East

Women's rights organisations in Eastern Europe say they are struggling to overcome centuries-old gender stereotypes.

KAZAKHSTAN: Prisoners Protest by Self-Mutilation

Horrific protests that have seen hundreds of inmates slice their stomachs open over conditions in jails in Kazakhstan are set to continue as the UN accuses the Central Asian country of trying to mask the real state of its prison system.

DEATH PENALTY: Abolition Needed, Not Moratorium

While almost all former Soviet states have rid their legal systems of the death penalty, a handful keep moratoriums in place. And although any stop to the death penalty is welcomed by campaigners against capital punishment, they say that in an often politically troubled region which has already seen calls for a reinstatement of the death penalty, complete abolition is needed to ensure authoritarian and populist leaders cannot reinstate it.

EASTERN EUROPE: Unwilling to Back Full Nuclear Disarmament

More than a year ago U.S. President Barack Obama came to Eastern Europe to announce his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. One year later, in the same place, the Czech capital Prague, he signed a deal slashing nuclear weapons stocks with his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev.

Church Urged to Fight Death Penalty

The Church is being urged to abandon its apolitical stance to help end the death penalty in Belarus as campaigners for its abolition warn that two men could be executed within weeks in the former Soviet state.

East Europe Takes to Too Many Cars

Quality of life in Eastern European cities will continue to fall unless outdated systems of city life dominated by cars are abandoned, NGOs in the region say.

Chernobyl Effects Could Last Centuries

Almost 25 years after the world’s worst nuclear accident a series of new scientific studies have suggested the effects of the Chernobyl disaster have been underestimated.

UKRAINE: Punished for Fighting AIDS

Drug users and doctors legally prescribing substitution drugs to addicts -- a key tool in the battle with the country's growing HIV epidemic -- are facing illegal police intimidation and imprisonment, HIV/AIDS activists in the Ukraine say. Fears are rising that the country's approach to the disease could be changing for the worse.

Greenpeace Gets New Wind in its Sails

Exactly 25 years after French secret agents sank its flagship and killed one of its crew, Greenpeace has begun construction of a new Rainbow Warrior. The group’s leaders say its environmental campaigning is needed more than ever.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Women Resist All-Male Cabinet

Women’s rights campaigners say the Czech Republic’s new government has effectively told women they have no relevance to the country’s future after the new cabinet was formed – without a single female minister.

KGB Back in Fashion in Ukraine

Regular police torture of suspects, a crackdown on press freedom and the right to assembly, and a return to KGB methods of intimidation and forced collaboration are part of "alarming" breaches of human rights in the Ukraine, international and domestic rights groups have warned.

‘This Is Worse Than Guantanamo’

A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner at a refugee detention centre in Slovakia has said he is prepared to die in hunger strike after living five months in conditions he says are worse than in the infamous U.S. prison.

Teenage Pregnancies Soar as Church Looks the Other Way

Pressure from the Catholic Church to effectively stop sex education in schools is threatening the health of tens of thousands of teenagers who fall pregnant every year because they have little or no knowledge of safe sex, education groups in Poland have warned.

Eastern Europe Resists Disarmament

Despite the U.S. and Russia signing what was widely hailed as a landmark deal on nuclear arms reduction in Eastern Europe last month, the region remains hesitant to back full disarmament.

Conflict Stirs Over Hungarians

Calls have been made for Slovakia and Hungary to start "open and sincere" dialogue amid fears that Slovakia's ethnic Hungarian minority will "suffer" following the election of a new government in Hungary and as Slovakia's nationalist coalition government looks for re-election.

Like Unemployed Mum and Dad

A generation of children growing up in Eastern Europe face poverty when they reach working age because of the effect their own parents' long-term unemployment will have on them, sociologists and economists have warned.

POLAND: Many Causes Lose Their Leaders

The plane crash which claimed the lives of 95 Polish officials and public figures, including President Lech Kaczynski, has dealt a blow to minority rights movements in the country, activists say.

EAST EUROPE: Organic Farming Blossoms

Eastern Europe's organic food industry is mushrooming as it brushes off the effects of the global recession, and more consumers in the region turn to healthier foods.