EGYPT: Muslim Brotherhood on the Mat

Several leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood opposition movement stand accused of plans to form an "international network of organisational cells." Its leaders say the charges are blatant fabrications.

FRANCE: Sharing a Recipe for Peace

Fourteen women are gathered in a Jewish kosher bakery on a sunny afternoon in Creteil, a multi-ethnic commune southeast of Paris. Bent over bowls of flour, tubs of butter and cartons of eggs, the women share jokes and anecdotes, speaking in both French and Arabic, as they knead dough and crack eggs open.

POLITICS-US: Anti-Abortion Movement Has New Poster Child

She's a politically savvy history student at the University of California, Los Angeles who is appearing on countless conservative talk radio programmes and cable television news shows.

GREECE: Showdown With Muslims Building Up

Fears have arisen for peace in Athens ahead of a large Muslim demonstration planned for Friday May 29. The demonstration has been called following rioting last week.

MIDEAST: Political Clouds Hang Over UNESCO Selection

With only a few days left before the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) nominates final candidates for the post of director-general, controversy continues to swirl around the leading contender, Egyptian culture minister Farouk Hosni.

POLITICS-US: Same-Sex Marriage May Return to the Ballot Box

In the wake of the California Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to uphold Proposition 8, which eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry, a surprising scapegoat and potential savior for opponents of the proposition has emerged in the California ballot initiative process.

CHINA-EU: Summit Redefines Diplomatic Boundaries

The global economic crisis has helped China and the European Union mend their recent rift over Tibet and human rights, but the two sides remain distrustful of each other’s intentions. Beijing complains that the EU’s crowded agenda makes it lose sight of the bigger picture in dealing with China. Brussels for its part, believes China is exploiting the EU’s divisions and treating the 27-state bloc with ‘diplomatic contempt’ on a range of issues from trade to the Dalai Lama.

POLITICS: At East-West Crossroads, Turkey Presses Ambitious Agenda

Two soaring bridges link Asia and Europe in this historic city, which straddles the two continents.

Q&A: 'More Women Need to Judge'

Thuraya Judi Alwazir is one of few women judges sitting on the Palestinian Authority's Judicial Authority. Alwazir speaks here to IPS about her experiences in a largely male-dominated environment, on the rights of women in regard to honour killings and domestic violence, and on the death penalty as applied in the West Bank.

POLITICS-US: Bigger, Badder Jihad Plot in 'Obsession' Rebooted

A new documentary from a shadowy non-profit, the Clarion Fund, has ties to groups widely accused of Islamophobia.

MIDEAST: Israel Expanding ‘Beautifully’ In Jerusalem

Even as Pope Benedict XVI tries his best during his current Holy Land visit to pay reverence to the attachment of all three monotheistic faiths to Jerusalem, on the ground a less lofty imprint is already furthering Israeli control over the Holy City in a way that could threaten the claims of all but Jews to Jerusalem.

RELIGION-NAMIBIA: Finding Sanctuary in Islam

Daisy Duck is the first to greet visitors to the Soweto Islamic Centre, from a television in the lounge of this former pre-primary school in Katutura, Windhoek’s oldest township. Beyond a kitchen is a humble, light-filled prayer room, the ground covered with carpets.

MIDEAST: Pope Failing the ‘Test of Pain’

Before stepping into Jerusalem's interfaith and inter-political Middle East minefields, Pope Benedict XVI had posited himself as a "pilgrim of peace". But, only hours into his spiritual mission, the Pope found himself crashing up against the walls erected by pain - Jewish pain and Muslim pain, the memory of the Holocaust, and Palestinian pain of the continued Israeli occupation.

INDONESIA: Using Religion to Strengthen Gender Equality

‘My husband rapes me repeatedly. I asked the ulama (religious leader) for help, but he sided with him, saying that according to Islam, a woman has to obey her husband. I have nowhere else to go. I have no tears left to shed. I no longer scream.’

POLITICS-US: Congress Resists Guantanamo Transfers

As lawmakers amped up the outcry against releasing Guantanamo "terrorists in our neighbourhoods", France agreed to accept a "cleared" Guantanamo prisoner and human rights groups continued to press for release of 17 Chinese Uigurs who the U.S. government has declared to be no threat to national security.

BALKANS: Religion Makes a Worrying Call

Five-year-old Admir does not come from a Muslim family, and so among the early lessons he is learning in school in Sarajevo is that he is out while most others are in.

POLITICS-US: Obama’s Uighur Problem

The probability that some Guantanamo detainees will soon be released into the U.S. will place the administration of President Barack Obama in the eye of a major political hurricane.

RIGHTS-IRAN: Damaging Forced Confessions

Iranian political refugees living in India say there is an all too familiar ring about the supposed confessions of arrested journalist Roxana Saberi, which they expect to see footage of on television soon.

MIDEAST: Pilgrim of Peace Heads for Land of Strife

Pope Benedict XVI says his visit to the Holy Land will be as a "pilgrim of peace": the pontiff's pilgrimage starts in Jordan Friday (May 8) and continues on from there to Palestine and Israel.

SINGAPORE: Evangelical Christians Take on Civil Society

For 25 years, the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) has been Singapore's most important civil society campaigner for gender justice.

US-ISRAEL: Film Examines Paranoia Over Anti-Semitism

"I have never experienced anti-Semitism myself, but it’s a phrase that always seems to be in the air," begins Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir’s lively new documentary "Defamation". "Three words seem to appear over and over again: Holocaust, Nazi, anti-Semitism."