CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Emboldened Opposition, but Few Real Reforms in Egypt

Domestically, the past year was a watershed for Egypt. It witnessed the emergence an empowered Muslim Brotherhood controlling roughly one-fifth of the parliament; a rebellion by reformist elements of the judiciary; and an embattled president vowing - but not yet delivering - a new era of political reform.

CENTRAL AMERICA: Garifunas Set Sights on Ecotourism

The Garífuna communities along the Caribbean coast of Central America are placing their bets on ecological tourism as a means to escape poverty, which they say has been worsened by free trade policies.

PORTUGAL-BRAZIL: Cod Reigns over the Christmas Banquet

In early December, large advertising hoardings went up in Portuguese cities, depicting a group of turkeys saying "Thank you, Norwegian cod! You saved our lives again this year!"

IRAN: Ahmadinejad, Hardliners Lose Ground in Key Polls

In two key elections, one for the influential Assembly of Experts and the other for city and village councils nationwide, Iranians have voted for moderation and reforms, delivering a shock to the hardline administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

HEALTH-MOZAMBIQUE: Healers’ Practices Under the HIV Spotlight

A motley group of about 20 men and women eyed each other tentatively as they met for the first time to discuss how they could jointly fight HIV/AIDS.

ASIA: Tsunami Children Click Their Way to Healing

Painful reminders and sources of healing - this is the paradox that characterises the photographs that 144 young tsunami survivors took during their two-year journey toward healing.

POLITICS: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Key political figures from the West and the Muslim world, as well as the outgoing U.N. chief Kofi Annan, urged the international community Monday to seriously examine ways to promote greater dialogue among civilisations and cultures.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: A People Under Siege

Five years after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, "Islamophobia" - intensified by the war in Iraq and government actions - has left millions of Muslims here and in other Western countries fearful of harassment, discrimination and questionable prosecutions, and confused about their place in society.

POLITICS-US: Holy Warriors Set Sights on Iran

Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Christian right has evolved into one of the most powerful grassroots organising forces within the Republican Party, and a host of Christian Zionists have taken a well-earned seat at the foreign policy table.

CHINA: Reading the Lessons of History – Selectively

Poised to become the world's next superpower, China has begun examining the rise and fall of other great nations in the hope of drawing lessons from their histories. There is one chapter that is being skipped though-China's own.

FIJI: Junta Tightens Grip on Pariah State

Military leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama continues to consolidate his hold on the country since staging the Dec 15 coup although he is hardly out of the woods with the economy in decline and no let up in international pressure.

POLITICS: Holocaust Meet Taunts West, Worries Iran&#39s Jews

By hosting an international conference on the Holocaust this week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad succeeded in doing what he does best- outraging the West and taunting the Israeli state. But he has also got the small community of Iranian Jews worried.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Lesotho Edging Towards Education MDG

Lineo* lost her father when she was about to start school and just after her unemployed mother had become blind. When friends of the 15-year-old went to their first classes in 1999, she had to cope with grief at the death of her father while also having to take care of her blind mother.

ASIA: Japan, India Set to Forge New Regional Order

Fledgling bilateral relations between Japan, Asia's powerhouse, and India, a major player in the region, are reckoned to have received a boost as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's four-day visit here winds up on Friday.

JAPAN: Women Make a Mark in Niche Businesses

Rie Nakamura, a tall, slim woman in her forties, started her company - a highly sophisticated portal sourcing and delivering packaged food from 6,500 companies - in 2002 and now reports annual sales that touch more than six million US dollars.

FIJI: Repeated Coups Threaten Plural Social Fabric

With tensions rising in Fiji, amid reports of a death threat against the head of the military regime and efforts by the deposed government to set up a parallel administration in the west of the country, civil society groups are concerned about the increasing potential for violence and have called for calm.

PAKISTAN: ‘Gitmo Is Like Being Alive in Your Own Grave’

''Guantanamo brings images of a man in orange overalls, his face down and a soldier holding him by the neck, like a dog on a leash," says 14-year-old Zahra Paracha. "Animals are treated better,'' she tells IPS.

ARTS-HAITI: Around the World in Eight Days

Some 100 Haitians squeezed into a sweltering Town Hall to see Al Gore lecture in Creole in "An Inconvenient Truth". Hundreds more gathered before a screen on the beach to hear Sierra Leone's Refugee Allstars sing, in Haitian Creole. And many returned a week later for "Sisters in Law", a Cameroonian documentary on domestic violence, again in their own language.

RELIGION-US: Video Game Metes Out Death to Infidels

A coalition of U.S. religious and progressive groups has stepped up a formal campaign to protest a controversial new Christian fundamentalist video game in which players battle the "forces of the Anti-Christ" and kill or convert non-believers.

MEDIA-AFGHANISTAN: Speaking Up Against Domestic Violence

In Afghanistan's pervasive culture of violence, women and girls are powerless to resist being traded to settle family disputes and debts; rape and abduction; and forced marriages. Violence is widely tolerated by the community.

POLITICS-INDONESIA: Aceh Savours Tsunami’s Gift of Peace

As it approaches the second anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Indonesian province of Aech, which took the worst beating, is basking in a spirit of hope that would have been hard to imagine two years ago.