AFGHANISTAN: Teaching Counterinsurgency – Too Little, Too Late

The Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy is a work in progress - the clamour of construction, the bulldozing of garbage and the sparse staff are all clear signs.

Q&A: "Religion Is The Private Sphere, Not The Public"

To curb fundamentalism and fight terrorism, "Religion must be kept out of politics," warns Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli foreign minister.

POLITICS: Fear of China Makes Japan Snub the Dalai Lama

Ignoring the fact that Japan is an Asian country with a sizeable Buddhist population, the government of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda cold-shouldered the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, during a ten-day visit that ended on Friday.

RIGHTS-MALAYSIA: Ethnic Indians on the Warpath

Malaysia’s Hindus - mostly Tamil descendents of 19th century labourers - on Sunday ignored warnings by Prime Minister Abdul Badawi and braved tear gas and police batons to protest alleged official discrimination and demand a fair share of the national wealth.

CULTURE-ASIA: Collectors Turn to Filipino Art

As the contemporary art market continues to boom, interest in Asian art grows and certain works fetch huge prices, Filipino artists are suddenly finding themselves a hot commodity.

RELIGION-IRAN: Attack on Sufis Reveals Intolerance of Muslim Sects

The destruction of a monastery belonging to the Gonabadi Sufi order in Boroujerd town of Luristan province, this month, has once again highlighted the hostile environment in which Iran’s many religious minorities and non-conformist sects exist.

DEATH PENALTY-CHINA: Going Easy on Executions Ahead of Olympics

Conscious of the need to burnish its international image ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, China has been more sparing in applying the death penalty this year - but the country is far from abolishing capital punishment.

Q&A: "Displacement Is a State of Mind"

Madeleine Thien is the Canadian-born daughter of Malaysian-Chinese immigrants. She launched her writing career with a widely acclaimed short story collection called "Simple Recipes" in 2001. Thien's recently released first novel, "Certainty", is about the legacies of loss, displacement from war and how human beings deal with trauma. She recently spoke with IPS correspondent Am Johal.

Q&A: "More Activism From Women Would Be a Significant Stimulus to the Abolition Cause"

Professor Sahar Mahdi Al Yassiri is a well-known writer on death penalty abolition in the Islamic world. Al Yassiri, a lawyer by trade, is also a member of several human rights NGOs, including the Right to Life Centre for Death Penalty Abolition in North Africa and the Middle East. In an interview with Abderrahim El Ouali, IPS correspondent in the region, she explains why it is crucial that women play a more active role in the abolition movement:

Q&A: “If It Is Globalisation, It Must Be Everybody’s”

The "war on terror" is not everybody's language, nor for that matter is "globalisation", says Nobel Prize laureate Amartya Sen. Nor is anyone right to think that religious radicalism is really an Islamic problem, he says.

SOUTH KOREA: Youth Apathetic to Reunification With North

One month after the historic South-North Korean summit and less than a month before presidential elections in South Korea, students, activists, and academics are lamenting a trend towards conservatism and political apathy among the youth.

RIGHTS-EU: Minorities Want Acceptance, Not ‘Tolerance’

"Tolerance? No. I want to talk about acceptance. I don't want to be ‘tolerated’, I want to be accepted as a disabled lesbian woman," said Lydia La Rivière-Zijdel, to a lengthy ovation at the event concluding the 2007 European Year of Equal Opportunities for All, in the Portuguese capital Tuesday.

Q&A: "The Presence of Women in Local Councils Is in Itself a Revolution"

As local elections in Benin draw closer, activists are pushing ahead with efforts to have more women voted into local government. Just 45 of the 1,189 councilors currently in office are women.

CUBA: Sails of Popular Education Catch Winds of Socialist Change

The growing role of popular education in local experiences of social change is spurring debate about the need for more active participation by the people of Cuba in the social transformations that are inevitable if it is to remain a socialist country.

POLITICS-EGYPT: Al Qaeda Faction Alters Course

The ideology al Qaeda rests on to justify its activities suffered a major blow this week.

AFGHANISTAN: Militancy Spreads to Northern Provinces

Militancy, which has turned southern Afghanistan into a conflict zone, has spread to the northern provinces that have been relatively peaceful since the Taliban regime was ousted from Kabul in end-2001.

RELIGION-BALKANS: Bishop May Be Retried For Sexual Abuse

The Supreme Court of Serbia recently announced that a local court in the southern city of Nis did not play strictly by legal rules when it pronounced a bishop of the influential Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) innocent in a sexual abuse case brought by four young men last year.

IRAQ: Fallujah Now Under a Different Kind of Siege

Three years after a devastating U.S.-led siege of the city, residents of Fallujah continue to struggle with a shattered economy, infrastructure, and lack of mobility.

CUBA: Popular Education Transforms Women’s Lives

"I have the spirit of a 15-year-old girl, and the wisdom of a 66-year-old woman," says Felicia Pérez, who recovered her joie de vivre after attending a handicrafts course, and became a promoter of urban values and the creator of a crafts workshop in her own neighbourhood.

RIGHTS-US: “Hindu-Phobia” Thrives in Dark Corners of the Web

Last July, a 35-year-old Indian American financial services executive was visiting Lake Tahoe in the San Francisco Bay Area with his fiancée and her cousin. As the group walked along the beach, a couple approached and called the women "Indian sluts and whores".

MEXICO: Ex Crackhead Cop Says God Can Heal Addicts

Miguel Fernández was a police officer in the Mexican capital who used and sold cocaine and crack for 18 years in collusion with his superiors and colleagues. Now he runs a small rehabilitation centre for addicts, where the Bible and God’s healing power are the treatment of choice.