POLITICS-US: Right Paints Obama as Manchurian Candidate

Since launching his bid for the U.S. presidency in 2007, Senator Barack Obama has weathered attacks on his background, race, name and religion.

RIGHTS-ITALY: Film Brings the Facts Home

Italy must accept its involvement in at least two proven cases of prisoner renditions, Amnesty International has demanded. The demand follows admission by the British government that a U.S. base on British soil - the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean - had twice been used by the United States as a refuelling stop for the secret transfer of two terrorism suspects in 2002.

POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Moderates&#39 Poll Victory Can Brake Extremism

Is the landslide election victory of liberal political parties likely to stem the tide of religious extremism and ‘Talibanisation’ that has engulfed Pakistan’s frontier areas bordering Afghanistan?

U.S./IRAQ: Strategic Alliances Remain Elusive

The George W. Bush administration has ballyhooed recent legislation passed by the Iraqi parliament as a sign that its troop escalation strategy has indeed created space for political reconciliation.

RELIGION-CUBA: Catholic Church Wants More Freedom to Do Its Work

Ten years after the historic visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II, who passed away in 2005, the Catholic Church continues to call for "unlimited" scope and "due freedom" for its social action initiatives in this socialist country, as one of its most important demands.

CUBA: Catholics Celebrate ‘Festival of the Spirit’

Eighty-two-year-old Alba Osorio feels as though she were 50 again. A true survivor, 10 years after the late Pope John Paul II’s visit to Cuba, she is now running back and forth from her house to the parish church, getting ready for what she regards as a new "festival of the spirit."

POLITICS-US: Snake Oil Sellers of the Christian Right?

The U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs came under heavy criticism earlier this month from Muslim and religious freedom advocacy groups after it invited to a conference three self-professed "former terrorists" with strong links to the Christian right.

RIGHTS-BURMA: Nobel Laureates Appeal to U.N.

Calls for an economic and military blockade of Burma are on the rise as diplomatic efforts have largely failed to prod that country’s military rulers towards democratic reforms.

RIGHTS-IRAN: Intolerance Marks Sunni Student’s Death Sentence

The death sentence passed in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, on civil rights activist and journalist Yaghub Mehrnahad, 28, has highlighted repression on Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities.

Q&A: World&#39s Children Have Progressed and Regressed

Most of the world's 2.2 billion children are languishing in extreme poverty, ignorance and exploitation, according to Reverend Keishi Miyamoto, who is described as the guiding spirit behind the Tokyo-based Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC).

IRAQ: A New Force Called Sahwa Shows Its Muscle

The Awakening Councils in Diyala province are stepping up their protests against the government in Baghdad.

IRAN: Candidate Purge Smacks of a “Vendetta”, Critics Say

The mass disqualification of reformist parliamentary candidates by Iran's Guardian Council, which oversees the electoral rolls, has diminished the possibility of fair elections on Mar. 14, observers say.

RIGHTS-AFGHANISTAN: Women Speak Out On Sexual Abuse By Relations

Violence against women perpetrated by a member of the woman’s family or someone known to her appears endemic in Afghanistan.

IRAQ: US-Backed Groups Challenge Government

U.S. backed Sunni militants have challenged the U.S.-backed Iraqi government in Baghdad, and demanded political power after two women were killed by government forces.

LEBANON: Internal Conflict in Chilling Rise

The year 2000 heralded the end of Israel's occupation of Lebanon, with the exception of the much disputed enclave of the Shebaa Farms, located at the country's southern western tip between Israel and Syria. Since then, concern over Hezbollah's new role has been in the political spotlight, leading to a continuous rise in tensions, especially following the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

MIDEAST: Will Netanyahu Surge Oust Olmert?

One day after the Jan. 30 release of the Winograd Commission report, which in part detailed some of the failures of the Israeli government and the military during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign.

RIGHTS: Hiroshima Forum to Focus on Children Under Siege

The world's 2.2 billion children are under siege - battling poverty, hunger, military conscription, sexual abuse, labour exploitation and HIV/AIDS, according to the United Nations.

TURKEY: This Turban Could Bring Trouble

Thanks to an alliance between the ruling Justice and Development (AK) and Nationalist Action (MH) parties, the Turkish Grand National Assembly has approved legislation to lift the ban on wearing the Muslim headscarf for female students at universities.

RIGHTS-BURMA: &#39How Many Monks Must Die Before The UN Moves?&#39

For one Buddhist monk from Burma, the brutal crackdown of peaceful street protests in the country last September was anything but a victory for the military regime.

TURKEY: Headscarves Decide National Identity

Turkey's Islamic-rooted governing party is moving ahead with hotly contested constitutional amendments that would lift the ban on headscarves at universities. Opponents see it as a danger-laden step undermining the currently rigid secular regime by introducing Islamic principles that may extend far beyond higher learning.

POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Rising Hindu Activism May Upset Poll Calculations

A new political force - right wing Hindu activism - has emerged in multi-ethnic Malaysia adding, in an election year, volatility to the country's already religiously charged politics dominated by the majority Malay Muslims.