Swiss Step Up Arms Exports, Peacefully

Switzerland has eased its restrictions on arms exports - in order to save a few thousand workplaces. Critics fear that Switzerland's credibility as an international peace broker will now suffer.

Koreans Embrace Some Old Ways

Old family bonds still seem to run deep in the South Korea of today. For evidence, one need only look at the yearning of the elderly to meet their long separated kin in North Korea during last month’s historic family reunions.

Russian Arms to Egypt Threaten to Undermine U.S. in Mideast

Russia, which is at loggerheads with Washington over the spreading political crisis in Ukraine, is threatening to undermine a longstanding military relationship between the United States and one of its traditional allies in the Middle East: Egypt.

A Matter of Life and Death

If you or some family members or friends suffer from cancer, hepatitis, AIDS, asthma or other serious ailments, it’s worth your while to follow the negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and other similar bilateral trade agreements.

Congress Pressured on Multinational Corporate Accountability

Advocacy and accountability groups are urging the U.S. Congress to enact new mechanisms that would allow it to hold multinational corporations accountable for rights infringements abroad.

Tahrir Square Finds a GrEEK Neighbour

The group of buildings near Tahrir Square could be modern campus-style office space anywhere. It’s hard to believe that just outside the heavy steel gates lies downtown Cairo, the noisy, polluted and now troubled heart of Egypt.

North Korea Doing Fine Without the South

If the North Korea of the 1990s was seen as a starving nation that produced an exodus of hungry people, then the picture should be even gloomier now – six years after it stopped receiving South Korea’s generous aid. But it’s not. The nation of 24 million people, widely said to be the most secretive in the world and a nuclear threat, appears to have weathered the years well.

Smuggled Medicines Save Lives

They are contraband, yet a large number of Pakistanis have come to depend on drugs made in India and smuggled into Pakistan. Patients as well as doctors say these are cheap and effective, even as law enforcers look the other way.

‘Humanitarian Crisis’ for Ogaden Living Near Ethiopia’s Oil Fields

New allegations of scorched earth evictions of the Ogaden people have raised concerns that a lack of benefit sharing could escalate instability in the region and reinforce separatist tensions as foreign energy companies prepare to extract oil and gas from troubled southeastern Ethiopia.

Poverty Rises Amidst Gold

Natural reserves such as gold, copper, nickel, gas and timber are being extracted in the western Pacific island states of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands to feed the soaring economies of East and South East Asia. But despite these Pacific nations recording economic growth rates of 6-11 percent over the past seven years, opportunities for human development have not been grasped.

South-South Cooperation Takes Off in Arab World

As the concept of South-South cooperation (SSC) continues to strengthen worldwide, some of the richest countries in the Arab world have been reaching out to the poor and the needy in the developing world.

Conflict on DRC, Zambia Border Threatens Regional Trade

Truck driver Alfred Ndlovu transports cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) mineral rich Katanga Province to South Africa twice a month. He has been doing this for the last five years but now he is considering giving it up because he fears for his life every time he crosses the border.

Half of U.S. Farmland Being Eyed by Private Equity

An estimated 400 million acres of farmland in the United States will likely change hands over the coming two decades as older farmers retire, even as new evidence indicates this land is being strongly pursued by private equity investors.

OECD in “Game-Changing” Move to Halt Tax Evasion

A major grouping of rich countries has unveiled a new model for the automatic exchange of certain individual financial information between countries, aimed at significantly cutting down on offshore tax evasion.

Website Welcomes Wildlife Trafficking Whistleblowers

A group of international organisations fighting illicit wildlife trafficking has unveiled a new website aimed at assisting whistleblowers who want to aid in the fight against wildlife crimes.

Philippines Makes Tentative Truce With Islamists

After two years of intensive negotiations, the Philippine government and the country’s largest rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), have signed a final peace agreement, which paves the way for a lasting resolution of one of the world’s longest-running intra-state conflicts.

Poverty Wages Unraveling Cambodia’s Garment Industry

Cambodia’s garment industry is regularly plagued with strikes and protests. But when armed security forces opened fire on striking workers in the capital city of Phnom Penh on Jan. 3, killing five and injuring dozens, it suddenly became clear that this was not just another protest.

Economic Crisis in Mali’s North as the South Recovers

Under the harsh Sunday afternoon sun, Daouda Dicko washes his client’s clothes on the shore of the Niger River, which runs through Mali’s capital, Bamako. “I started doing this to survive two years ago. Now, I am used to it and I don’t mind the extra money it brings,” Dicko, who also works as a gardener, tells IPS.

Chileans, Peruvians Unperturbed by State Conflicts

Juan González and Luis Monsalve come from different backgrounds, but have much in common. González, a 40-year-old Peruvian migrant who has lived for the past eight years in Santiago, and Monsalve, a 63-year-old Chilean, agree that border conflicts never benefit ordinary people.

Protesters Resist an ‘Indian Fukushima’

Activists opposed to India’s plans to massively increase civilian nuclear power production are aghast that a plan for an Indo-Japanese nuclear cooperation deal is gaining pace even while Japan is struggling to cope with the fallout of the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Rouhani Reaches Out at Davos

Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Hassan Rouhani tried to persuade world business leaders to invest in Iran, especially in its hydrocarbon and automobile sectors.