ICELAND: Living With Ghost Towns*

Icelandic municipalities are being forced to repay individuals who had been allocated building land in new residential areas but can no longer afford to build.

SRI LANKA: In Honour of Slain Editor, They Keep Writing

At the end of the long editorial room of ‘The Sunday Leader’ hangs a large sketch of Lasantha Wickrematunge, the late editor of the newspaper, who was assassinated on Jan. 7. He was shot in his car, just five minutes from his office.

POLITICS: China Pulling Southeast Asia into Its Orbit

The global financial crisis is proving a boon for a resurgent China, which is poised to exert ever greater influence in Southeast Asia.

ECONOMY-US: Workers Win and Lose in Chrysler Retooling

The U.S. government will invest billions in Chrysler and the United Auto Workers (UAW) trade union will become majority owners of the company, in a financial rescue deal announced Thursday by the White House.

LABOUR: World Bank in About-Face on Worker Rights

The World Bank is dropping an index scored for undermining worker rights from its flagship effort to promote business-led economic growth in emerging, developing, and former Soviet countries.

MAY DAY: Europeans Begin to See Red

European unions are facing a difficult choice this May Day between holding protests to protect workers' interests, or holding off to avoid a further deepening of the economic recession.

ECONOMY-US: Taxpayer Rage Builds Over Credit Card Abuses

With the U.S. economy in dire straits, Congressional leaders and President Barack Obama are turning their attention to stopping credit card abuses, including high interest rates, fees, and other practices that are affecting millions of U.S. households.

SRI LANKA: Media Kept on Tight Leash

As the latest round of Asia’s longest-running guerrilla war winds down, scores of journalists here are experiencing intimidation and harassment for being critical of the military campaign against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

EGYPT: Market Crash Crushes the Poor

Egyptians facing economic hardship know how tough it can be to put food on their table. Now they have also learned the cold, hard reality of the capital market.

ICELAND: Taking the First Turn Left

Iceland's Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Green Party won the majority of the seats in the Apr. 25 election, and will continue to work together for the next four years as the ruling coalition.

ECONOMY-INDIA: Tax Haven Loot Turns Election Issue*

General elections currently being contested in India have brought an unusual issue to the fore - the repatriation of more than a trillion dollars believed to have been stashed away in Swiss and other tax havens.

HEALTH-ASIA: Taiwan Blazes a Trail to Help Drug Users with HIV

Taiwan is emerging as a beacon of hope for countries across Asia grappling to stop the spread of the AIDS epidemic among injecting drug users (IDUs), a major risk group.

ENERGY-LATIN AMERICA: US Proposes “Variable Geometry”

The United States will work on energy issues with the other countries of the Americas based on "a variable geometry," allowing governments to choose to cooperate in some areas but not others, said Jeremy Martin, head of the energy programme at the Institute of the Americas at the University of California San Diego.

ECONOMY: Crisis Pushing Key Poverty Goals Out of Reach

The global economic crisis has created a "development emergency" that will put at least some of the U.N.'s key poverty-reducing 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) out of reach for many countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, according to a new report released Friday by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

ECONOMY: Struggle to Solve Crisis Moves to IMF, World Bank

Efforts to pull the global economy out of its nosedive enter a new phase this weekend amid warnings the decline is steeper than previously thought and signs the cockpit crew continue to jostle for the joystick.

CENTRAL AMERICA: Protect the Most Vulnerable, ECLAC Says

The global economic crisis has had a severe impact on Central America and the Dominican Republic, and unemployment and poverty will increase significantly, according to a new study by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

ECONOMY: Caribbean Bleeding Jobs, With No End in Sight

Earlier this month, the Chinese bauxite mining and processing company Bosai Minerals announced plans to lay off about 20 percent of its nearly 600-member workforce from its mines in southeastern Guyana.

ENVIRONMENT: U.N. to Celebrate “Mother Earth Day”

"Mother Earth is not an object or merchandise. Mother Earth cannot be bought or sold," said Bolivian President Evo Morales, speaking at a heavily-attended news conference here at U.N. headquarters on Earth Day.

DEVELOPMENT: World Bank Steps Up Funding for “Safety Nets”

The World Bank plans to triple its lending for social safety nets in poor countries to 12 billion dollars over the next two years in order to better protect the most vulnerable people from the worst effects of the global economic crisis, the bank announced Tuesday.

DEVELOPMENT: IMF, Reform Thyself, Groups Say

Ahead of the annual meetings of the world's biggest international financial institutions this weekend, calls are growing for the United Nations to take new initiatives on financing for development in poor countries.

POLITICS: Summit of Americas Ends with a Whimper

There is only one signature on the Declaration of Port of Spain, out of 34 slots.