BALKANS: Economic Crisis Takes Harsh Toll

It's been quite a while since Mevliha Cebo enjoyed the job she was educated for: a pre-school teacher in her native Sarajevo.

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.

CHINA: Giant Seeks to Play Superman

As China's aggressive acquisitions in Europe and beyond create ripples of unease in a global economy gripped by fear of another recession, many commentators are discerning a unified strategy for expansion orchestrated by Beijing.

ICELAND: The Ash Comes Down Like a Blessing to Some

"It's unbelievable, the eruption has had a very good effect on the grass," says farmer Finnur Tryggvason in Raudafell, just beneath the Eyjafjallajokull glacier that erupted in April and continued till late May.

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.

EU: This Big Brother Is in the U.S.

Private information on innocent citizens will be handed over to U.S. law enforcement authorities under an agreement slated for approval by the European Parliament this week.

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.

Swiss Knives Out for Migrants

The disputed 'black sheep' placards may soon return to Swiss streets. The country's Federal Council and parliament have validated a right-wing initiative calling for the automatic deportation of criminal foreigners.

GERMANY: Nature vs. Nurture in Forest Recovery

Amidst criticism and applause from environmentalists and experts, a programme is emerging in Germany to expand the total area covered by forests -- to as much as five percent of national territory. The debate centres on just how much human intervention there should be.

‘Save Us From These Bankers, Fast’

Besieged by bankers opposed to regulation of their sector, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have taken an unusual step. A cross-party alliance has called for an international campaigning organisation to concentrate on remedying the flaws of the financial services industry with the same tenacity that Amnesty International focuses on victims of torture and Greenpeace on toxic chemicals and whales.

SRI LANKA: U.S. Labour Review Comes on Top of EU Pressure

When garment factory workers outside Colombo once organised a noisy protest over a bonus issue, police threatened to file charges – of hostage taking -- against them.

HUMAN RIGHTS: Peru’s Past to Serve as Evidence in Spanish Judge’s Trial

Human rights crimes committed in Peru in the 1990s -- initially amnestied but later tried in court -- will be presented in the trial of Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón as evidence that crimes against humanity cannot be legally pardoned.

‘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.

Britain to Probe Collaboration with CIA Renditions

Breaking from President Barack Obama's insistence on "moving forward, not backward" in investigating U.S. detainee torture, the British government appears poised to investigate its own complicity with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in "rendering" British citizens and residents and subjecting them to "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

European Crisis Is Chinese Opportunity

When China designed the 2010 Universal Expo in Shanghai as a showcase for its new public diplomacy, it probably did not envision the exhibition will play a much bigger role as a magnet for recession-hit European businesses.

MIDEAST: When the Police Have an Illegal Headquarters

Talks aimed at reaching an intelligence-sharing agreement between the European Union and Israel have skirted around the location of Israel's national police headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.

Domestic Workers Begin to See Some Rights

Twenty-seven-year-old Maria Puscariu is about to complete her MA in philosophy at a Belgian university. The Moldovan has been working for over five years as a domestic worker in Western Europe in order to support herself and finance her studies.

SPAIN: Women Entrepreneurs Pledge Support for African Counterparts

Senegalese businesswoman Marie Thiaré makes her business cards by hand, because she has no way to have them printed -- a sharp contrast with the situation faced by women entrepreneurs in Europe, where it is easy to order business cards, and most people even have their own home computer and printer.

TRADE-SOUTHERN AFRICA: The End of EPA Acrimony May Be in Sight

Southern African trade ministers have pledged to sign a significantly scaled down economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) before the end of 2010. Could this be the conclusion to years of divisive negotiations?

G20: China May Not Play Saviour

Against a backdrop of rising expectations that it holds the key to global economic recovery, China has sent a subtle signal that its economic health is frail and that external pressure to revalue its currency will cause more damage than good.

Produce More Food, Naturally

With the world's population predicted to reach 9 billion by mid-century, the notion that a form of agriculture aimed at producing more from less can put food in everyone's mouth may appear Utopian. Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations' special rapporteur on the right to food, begs to differ. The Belgian professor is a champion of agro-ecology, a science that stresses the need to work with nature, rather than to try and conquer and replace them with technology developed in laboratories.