COLOMBIA: All the President’s Spies

Colombian journalist Hollman Morris phoned an international news agency and said in an agitated voice: "I am being followed by the police."

U.S.: Congress Reviews Military Contracts, Kabul Embassy Scandal

Private security guards abandoning their posts at the U.S. embassy in Kabul for up to three and a half hours.

NIGERIA: Endemic Corruption Draining Human, Economic Resources

Government corruption has long been a fact of life in Nigeria - elections are often fraught with fraud, intimidation, and violence; oil companies have been known to pay the military for assistance in suppressing protests; embezzling politicians steal money away from infrastructure services and programmes.

GUATEMALA: A Candle in the Darkness of Impunity

"The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) is our only hope for achieving justice, because it is not contaminated or compromised," Eduardo Rodas Marzano, the brother of murdered lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg, told IPS.

PERU: Sins of Her Father Visit Fujimori’s Daughter

Keiko Sofía Fujimori, who is planning to run for president of Peru in 2011, is having difficulty proving that her father, who governed this country from 1990 to 2000, did not make illicit use of public funds to pay for her studies and those of her brothers and sister at universities in the United States.

CORRUPTION-PERU: Ex-Ministers’ Testimony Could Sink Fujimori

The Peruvian justice system has the confessions of three convicted former ministers in the government of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), to support corruption charges against him, prosecutor Avelino Guillén told IPS.

LEBANON: Legal Flaws Could Twist Election Result

When Lebanon heads to the polls Jun. 7 to decide whether the Hizbullah-led opposition alliance will unseat the ruling Western-backed coalition, voter anonymity could be compromised by shortcomings in the 2008 parliamentary election law.

YEMEN: Qat Cultivation Draining Water Reserves

The tall green shrubs on Yehia Abdullah's farm in the Haraz mountains produce the bitter-tasting leaves that feed the nation's number one addiction. More than seven million Yemenis chew qat, the mildly narcotic leaf of the Catha edulis tree. Expanding cultivation of qat to meet growing national demand is rapidly depleting Yemen's limited groundwater resources, experts warn.

THAILAND: New Probe into ‘Drug War’ Killings Takes a Stab at Impunity

A special investigative arm of Thailand’s criminal justice system is set to mount a fresh probe into a massacre of civilians during a brutal ‘war on drugs’ launched six years ago, when the authoritarian Thaksin Shinawatra was the country’s prime minister.

RIGHTS: More Calls to Ban Zimbabwe’s Blood Diamonds

Amid allegations of human rights abuses and government corruption, international calls are growing to ban or restrict the trade in diamonds from politically unstable Zimbabwe.

BRAZIL: Mixed Reviews for ‘Community Policing’ in Slums

The police, who used to shoot first and ask questions later in Santa Marta, a Rio de Janeiro shantytown, are now getting on well with the local community – the result of a state government plan that nevertheless has drawn criticism.

DEVELOPMENT: Lifting the ‘Resource Curse’

Four new countries have joined the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global effort to set concrete standards for the transparent management of revenues from the oil, gas and mining sectors.

VENEZUELA: Shootings of Unionists Continue Unabated

Two shots to the head, fired from a van, put a sudden end to the life of Argenis Vásquez, the organising secretary of the Toyota assembly plant workers' union in the city of Cumaná, 400 kilometres east of the Venezuelan capital, as he was leaving his home at 09:00 local time.

EAST TIMOR: Journalists Hold Out For Better Media Laws

Journalists in East Timor are anxiously waiting for a set of media laws to be revised after a negative reaction to a draft that was circulated in March.

VENEZUELA: “Express” Kidnappings All the Rage

Rosa M. was about to blow out the candles on her cake when the phone rang. Instead of another birthday greeting, she heard her coworker Gladys sobbing and asking her for financial help, because on her way to the party in the Venezuelan capital she had fallen prey to an "express kidnapping."

POLITICS: Same Firms Shipping Aid and Arms, Report Says

The military conflicts raging across Africa, Asia and Latin America have been significantly influenced by the heavy flow of illicit small arms, cocaine and rich minerals.

FINANCE: OECD Tax Havens Deal Falls Short, Critics Say

Jeffrey Owens, the tax "point person" of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), was stung by activist critics of the OECD standards under which countries will be put on a tax haven blacklist and targeted for sanctions.

TRADE: EC Manufactured Bogus ‘African Business’ Support for EPAs

The exposure of the European Commission's (EC) manufacturing of African business support for the contentious economic partnership agreements (EPAs) has so far elicited little action by members of the European Parliament.

POLITICS-INDIA: Criminalisation Deters Women Candidates

While India's major political parties are pledged to increase the space for women in the electoral process, a major deterrent to female participation is the steady criminalisation of politics in this country.

FINANCE-US: IRS on the Track of Tax-Cheating “John Doe’s”

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is hitting pay dirt with a novel legal tactic designed to catch tax evaders. And it's going to use it to force international banks to give up the names of tax cheats.

CAMBODIA: Corruption Allegations Undermine Khmer Rouge Tribunal

The voice of Comrade Duch reverberates daily through the speakers at the 500- seat courtroom in Phnom Penh as he gives testimony in his trial for crimes against humanity.