POLITICS: Pakistani al Qaeda a Real Threat – US Intelligence

The United States intelligence community’s latest assessment of al Qaeda and the threat it poses to the homeland appears to have both renewed questions about the wisdom of invading Iraq and returned the spotlight to an increasingly strife-ridden Pakistan.

Q&A: Mormon Church Spreads Out in Russia

For more than a century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has been struggling to establish itself in the former Soviet republics and parts of Eastern Europe.

MIDDLE EAST: Iran&#39s Claim on Bahrain Aimed at US

While an editorial in Iran's influential ‘Kayhan’ daily laying territorial claims on Bahrain has sparked considerable tension in the region, the real target may lie in competition with the United States for influence in the Persian Gulf.

SIERRA LEONE: Caught Between Leaving the Kitchen and Putting Food on the Table

When Iyesha Josiah told people last year that after the August 2007 general elections, she would stand before them as a new member of parliament for Sierra Leone, they thought she was joking.

SRI LANKA: Civil War Shifts to Jaffna

As the government celebrates the capture of the country’s east, all out battles with Tamil rebels in their northern bastion of Jaffna have become imminent.

TURKEY: Winner May Not Rule

Turkey's Islamic-rooted governing party will soon put its record to test in a parliamentary election dominated by the role of religion in public life and possible military incursion into the Iraqi quagmire. It may win, but not govern.

LATIN AMERICA: Catholic Church Renews &#39Option for the Poor&#39

The Roman Catholic Church plans to undertake concrete projects in the next four years to help overcome poverty in Latin America, the region with the most glaring income inequalities in the world.

CULTURE-ZIMBABWE: &#39&#39It Is Unlawful to Speak the Truth&#39&#39

"If I am going to change anything in my script it will be punctuation marks. I am not changing anything else,’’ said Cont Mhlanga, a prominent Zimbabwean playwright and founder of Bulawayo-based Amakhosi Theatre Production House. He was responding to the banning of his play entitled ‘‘The Good President’’.

BALKANS: Music Brings Political Harmony

The northern Serbian city Novi Sad and capital Belgrade have become multi-ethnic centres of the Balkans over the past five days with the hosting of the EXIT festival and the Saturday concert of the Rolling Stones.

IRAQ: Partition Fears Begin to Rise

Many Iraqis are now beginning to see the rising sectarian violence as part of a larger plan to partition the country.

PAKISTAN: After Red Mosque Raid Gov&#39t Confronts Taliban

Pro-Taliban rebels operating close to the Afghan border have, through a series of suicide bomber attacks on security forces over the weekend causing some 80 deaths, signalled the end of a peace deal with the government and determination to avenge the Jul. 10-11 army raid on the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad.

RIGHTS-MOROCCO: Childhood Being Stolen

Habiba Hamrouch describes her daughter, Sanaa, as her "revenge" - her blow against the mixture of abuse, tradition and indifference that enables thousands of girls to be exploited as domestic servants in Morocco.

RIGHTS-IRAN: "Blood Was Everywhere, the Smell of Death"

Criticism of Iran's judiciary is mounting following the brutal execution of a man who was convicted of adultery more than a decade ago and stoned to death on Jul. 5. Although the head of the judiciary branch, Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, issued a written order stopping the execution almost a month ago, the judge in the case insisted on stoning Jafar Kiani to death.

COLOMBIA: Using Communication to Build Peace

"We don't want to give birth to children who go off to war. We want our children to be filmmakers, painters, dentists, whatever they want, but not to repeat this disgraceful war," a Colombian woman tells IPS.

HAITI-DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: A Fragile Coexistence

The border between Anse a Pitres in Haiti and Pedernales in the Dominican Republic, both seven hours from their respective capitals, is barred only by a chain that pedestrians can easily cross.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Anti-Terror Law Draconian – Former Chief Justice

As a magistrate extended for the third time the period an India-born Muslim doctor could be held in custody over suspected links to the terror plot in Britain a former chief justice of the Australian High Court slammed the country’s anti-terrorism laws as draconian and threatening civil liberties.

RIGHTS-IRAN: Students Unfazed by Arrests, Suppression

When six members of Iran’s largest students’ organisation, ‘Office to Foster Unity’, risked arrest and indefinite imprisonment to stage a sit-in demonstration, this week, it was a measure of their determination to take on the suppressive, hard line regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

WORLD POPULATION DAY: Enlightened Men Prescribed for Maternal Health

What is a common factor in ensuring that women do not marry too young, do not have more children than they can cope with, do not die giving birth - and contract HIV in smaller numbers? Men.

RIGHTS-BOLIVIA: Indigenous People March On Constituent Assembly

Indigenous people are marching for their right to autonomy, heading from the lowland city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in central Bolivia to the constitutional and judicial capital, Sucre, where the country's Constituent Assembly is meeting.

PAKISTAN: Troops Storm Red Mosque, Musharraf Tightens Grip

Pakistan's security forces stormed the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) Tuesday in Islamabad to flush out armed militants barricaded within the complex, a move that will likely help President Gen. Pervez Musharraf deflect international criticism that he has not been doing enough to contain the Taliban on this side of the Afghan border.

CHILE: Aymaras Don’t Want to Disappear

Twenty years ago, close to 100 indigenous Aymara people lived in the village of Cancosa, but today only 10 remain. The same is true of many indigenous communities in the Chilean Altiplano, as their members have moved out in search of jobs and educational opportunities.