CHINA: Strict Gun Control Laws Fail to Curb Violent Crime

China and guns have a long history.

COLOMBIA: Drug Trade’s Hold on Football Persists

Football, the most popular sport in Colombia, has been subject to heavy pressures from drug trafficking since the mid-1970s. A new study shows that the illicit trade continues to tarnish the upper echelons of this sport.

Argentine Football Violence Exported to South Africa

No one admits to providing them with support, but hundreds of Argentine football hooligans known as "barras bravas" flew to South Africa for the World Cup and are threatening to cause disturbances if the football clubs do not get them tickets to the games.

JAPAN: Challenges Temper Optimism as New Premier Vows Reform

Expectations are high for Japan’s new prime minister, Naoto Kan, who has taken over the reins of a country saddled with massive public debt and a domestic furore over the failure of the former head of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and newly resigned premier Yukio Hatoyama to deliver on his campaign pledge to move the controversial U.S. military base out of the southern island of Okinawa.

GUATEMALA: Major Setback in Fight Against Corruption

The resignation of the head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), Spanish judge Carlos Castresana, due to a lack of government support will make the already Herculean task of fighting corruption and impunity in this Central American country even more complex, human rights groups warn.

MALAYSIA: Planned Subsidy Cut Draws Fire, Seen to Hurt the Poor

The government’s proposal to remove and rationalise subsidies on essential goods and services continues to provoke a storm of criticism from ordinary Malaysians.

FOOD: Something Smells Rotten in Venezuela

Tens of thousands of tonnes of basic foods rotted in the last year in shipping containers belonging to the Venezuelan government. Fully two-thirds of the food consumed by Venezuela's 27 million inhabitants is imported.

CAMBODIA: Aid Donors Urged to Demand Faster Reforms from Gov’t

Yuen Mach sat on the floor of her wooden home, her hands nervously twisting a stalk of lemongrass into fibrous strands.

MEXICO: Parents’ Fight for Justice Continues a Year After Nursery Fire

From the moment he wakes up each morning, Abraham Fraijo feels the absence of his daughter Emilia, one of the 49 children who died Jun. 5, 2009, in a fire at the ABC child-care centre in the northwestern Mexican city of Hermosillo. It is the battle for justice that keeps him going.

Corporate Greenwash at EU Environment Meet?

Coca-Cola, recently indicted for causing serious damage to water and soil in India, might seem like an odd champion of environmental protection.

Burundi’s Opposition Alleges Election Fraud

The first in a series of elections has brought simmering discontent with Burundi's electoral commission to the boil.

RIGHTS: China’s Secret ‘Black Jails’ Hold Sordid Tales of Injustice

In 2003, a number of Xu Cong Yang’s possessions – including jewelry and a rare stamp collection – went missing. The culprit, he believed, was a company owned by the local government in a central Chinese city that Xu had enlisted to insure the items.

Peruvian Congress Calls in Debt from U.S. Oil Executive

The Peruvian Congress has opened proceedings to demand that U.S. businessman William Kallop pay the Treasury 482.2 million dollars -- taxes on the 900-million-dollar sale of a petroleum company and other debts to the government.

FINANCE: Ecuador Wants Off the Money-Laundering List

"It sounds incredible, but it's just a matter of a letter that wasn't turned in on time," Ecuador's attorney general said in regards to the Financial Action Task Force decision to qualify the country as "posing a risk to the international financial system."

Q&A: Albanians Press Democracy With Hunger Strike

Since May 1 over 200 people have been on hunger strike in a tent in the centre of the Albanian capital of Tirana supported by rallies of 200,000 protestors and road blocks across the country to press for a recount of last year’s parliamentary vote.

UNESCO Catches Heat Over Prize Named for “Dictator”

Human rights groups are expressing outrage over a decision to proceed with the UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences, named after and funded by the controversial president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.

ICELAND: Int’l Arrest Warrant Against Top Bank Official

Vigorously pursuing those allegedly responsible for Iceland’s 2008 financial crisis, investigators have got issued an international arrest warrant against Sigurdur Einarsson, chairman of the board of governors of the failed Kaupthing Bank.

Corruption Muddies Egypt’s Labour Pool

Saeed El-Masry was born poor, raised poor and, unless he can get ‘kosa,’ will probably die poor. Kosa is the Arabic word for zucchini, but it also means someone in a position of power who can open doors to gainful employment.

Q&A: ‘Corporate Lobbying Affects EC Credibility’

The intimate relationship between Europe's top policy-makers and major corporations has been underscored once more in recent days. Barely six months after they ceased being members of the European Commission, Germany's Günter Verheugen and Ireland's Charlie McCreevy have been handed lucrative posts with the Royal Bank of Scotland and the no-frills airline Ryanair.

MEXICO: Terror Returns to Oaxaca

A violent incident in which two activists were killed in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca has raised fears among human rights groups of a return to the unrest and severe clashes between protesters and police that virtually paralysed the state in 2006.

A ‘Green’ President for Colombia?

Colombian presidential candidate Antanas Mockus of the Green Party has been gaining as many as 10,000 new fans a day on Facebook. From just 200 friends at the start, he now has more than 450,000.