POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Bhutto Murder Suspect Arrested – Or Protected?

The arrest of top militant leader Qari Saifullah Akhtar may have brought Pakistani intelligence agencies closer to discovering any conspiracy behind the Dec. 27 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. But many believe the opposite to be true.

CUBA: How Far Will the Changes Go?

After months of uncertainty and speculation centred on former President Fidel Castro, Cuba’s obsessive spotlight has shifted to the changes needed in the country, and questions about how far the new government of President Raúl Castro will be willing to go.

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?

CULTURE-US: &#39Black Art&#39 Draws New Collectors, Better Prices

Landscapes are the images that come to mind in the work of artist Richard Mayhew. The New York-born expressionist credits that to his part African American, part Native American roots.

IRAN/UAE: US Efforts to Scuttle Economic Ties Fail

Iran and the United Arab Emirates have begun top level talks to boost economic relations despite efforts by the United States to disrupt trade ties and an unresolved territorial dispute over the three strategic islands of Abu Mousa, the Lesser and the Greater Tunb in the Strait of Hormuz.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Apology To Stolen Generations – A Good Start

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s recent apology to indigenous Australians, for the wrongs and injustices inflicted upon them by the policies of past governments, was momentous. But other indigenous issues are yet to be resolved.

CULTURE-CHINA: Angst Over State-Managed Festivals

As celebrations for the Chinese new year die down, many are casting a wary eye on government-mandated efforts to revive traditional culture through large orchestrated temple fairs and censored displays of folk religion.

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.

SCIENCE: Deposing the Tyranny of English

For scientists around the world, it is publish - in English - or perish.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: Demand For Women Legislators High

Women’s rights advocates in the Solomon Islands are urging their government to act on the findings of a recent survey which show that 89 percent of respondents want more women in Parliament.

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."

JAPAN/US: Teenager’s Rape By Marine – Public Reaction Mute

While the Japanese government will formally complain to United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the alleged rape of a 14-year-old junior high school girl by a U.S. marine on the southern Okinawa island, public reaction to the incident has been muted.

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.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Citizenship Test Discriminatory – Migrant Advocates

Refugee and multicultural advocates say that Australia’s controversial citizenship test, introduced late last year by the previous government, discriminates against applicants from marginalised, non-English speaking backgrounds.

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).

MEXICO: Annual Sex Expo Bigger than Ever

For an entrance fee of 17 dollars, visitors to this year’s sex expo in the Mexican capital will be offered a range of products and entertainment options, including a zoo in which barely-clothed men and women pose as animals.

ASTRONOMY-COLOMBIA: Dazzled by Stars, Dreams and Doubts

Esteban Felipe is six years old and wants to be a policeman when he grows up. Or better still, an astronomer, he says as he plays with a plastic rocket that he decorated with coloured paper at one of the children’s workshops at the 11th Festival of self-taught astronomers.

SOUTH PACIFIC: Rudd Apology to Aboriginals Hailed Regionally

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s standing and stature will receive a considerable boost among Pacific Island states as a result his apology to the country’s aboriginal people this week, say academics and civil society activists.

DEATH PENALTY-INDONESIA: Bali Bombers’ Reprieve Likely To Be Brief

Lawyers for the three Islamist militants sentenced to death for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings have succeeded in winning an execution delay - but their last-ditch effort to save their clients from a firing squad is likely to be only temporary.

RIGHTS-CAMBODIA: Painter to Meet His Jailer at Khmer Rouge Trials

Sometime this year, two men who stood on either side of the genocide unleashed in Cambodia in the 1970s may finally face each other in a special war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh.

CUBA: Cultural Policy Debate Keeps Growing

More than a year after the outbreak of the so-called "e-mail war", the debate on cultural policy has not died down in Cuba. And although the issue is not addressed in the national media, the discussion continues, and is spreading to embrace other aspects of life in this socialist island nation.