THAILAND: Gov’t Tightens Noose on Thaksin with Terrorism Charge

Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s list of political firsts has one more entry. He is now wanted as a "terrorist," becoming the first former Thai leader to be slapped with that charge.

MIDEAST: Israeli Navy Storms Humanitarian Flotilla

Israeli naval commandos shot dead at least 16 people and wounded over 30 on Monday morning, as they attacked an unarmed humanitarian and civilian flotilla - in international waters - trying to bring desperately needed aid to Gaza. The death toll was expected to rise.

PAKISTAN: Women Intensify Push to Pass Law Against Acid Attacks

Almost seven years after Naila Farhat, 20, became another victim of an acid throwing attack by a spurned suitor, she is finally seeing more vigorous efforts toward the passage of a law seeking to amend existing legislation to reinforce protection of women against violent assaults.

PAKISTAN: Lake Disaster Triggers New Displacements

Up until Saturday the Attabad Lake in northern Pakistan had been rising one metre every day and was thus on the verge of breaking its banks, observed Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmed, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

URUGUAY: Environmental Partners

A wide range of strategies are being followed in the southeastern Uruguayan province of Rocha to counteract the environmental damages of activities like soy cultivation, plantation forestry and tourism. But challenges abound.

Q&A: “Aboriginal Women Need to Lead from the Front”

At the beginning of 2011, Australian Aboriginal woman Megan Davis will join a select group of indigenous experts from around the world.

SRI LANKA: Garment Sector, Gov’t Optimistic about Trade Pact with EU

Relations between Sri Lanka and European Union (EU), which turned frosty around six months back, appear to be thawing as the government makes a last ditch stand to regain a crucial trade concession that has been suspended over human rights issues hounding the south Asian island state.

LATIN AMERICA: Governments Call for Greater Voice in Environmental Funding

"There should be a mechanism for recipient countries to help bring about a more balanced distribution of GEF funds," Cuban delegate Jorge Luis Fernández told IPS after a forum Tuesday on how to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of the Global Environment Facility.

More Funds, Less Red Tape, NGOs Tell GEF Assembly

Civil society organisations called for more funds, less bureaucracy and greater decision-making power, at the opening of the Fourth Global Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly Monday in this Uruguayan resort town.

MIDEAST: US Funds Apartheid Roads on West Bank

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is helping Israel to construct an apartheid road infrastructure in the occupied Palestinian West Bank by financing nearly a quarter of the segregated road system primarily for the benefit of Israeli settlers.

TRADE-NEPAL: Himalayan Nation’s Garment Industry in Tatters

These days, First Vice-President of the Garment Association (GAN) of Nepal Udaya Raj Pandey is mostly seen at the National Campus rather than the GAN office that he once frequented almost every day.

ECONOMY-BALKANS: ‘How Did We Become So Poor?’

Almost two decades after Yugoslavia fell apart, the majority of the defunct socialist country’s people are insecure and uncertain for their future with the booming economy and rapid development that capitalism promised remaining a pipe dream.

BULGARIA: Blue Danube Meanders Into Road Building

The European Union Danube Strategy (DS), unfolding this year, is proving to be a litmus test for the viability of the concept of ‘green growth’ in Eastern Europe.

GREECE: Turks Bearing Gifts

The first visit in six years of a Turkish prime minister to Greece has been widely hailed as a historical rapprochement after a long period of mutual bitterness.

Haiti Asks Expat Professionals to Return and Help

Members of the Haitian diaspora responded with "massive and spontaneous" aid immediately after the Jan. 12 earthquake, with thousands of professionals leaving jobs abroad to go and assist their compatriots, according to a government minister.

BIODIVERSITY: Prized Bluefin Tuna Adrift in a Sea of Conflicting Interests

Mounting international criticism against Japan’s Atlantic bluefin tuna imports linked closely to the extinction of the species has turned the spotlight, once again, on the lack of a viable means of protecting most of the world’s fast- depleting natural resources.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Cash Transfers Transforming Lives of the Poor

When Letesia Mbewe was nominated as a beneficiary in a cash transfer pilot project in Zambia’s Chipata district, she had no idea the project would change her life and that of her three children.

POLITICS: Sri Lanka’s Turnaround Could Signal New Beginning

For a country that has had quite a few run-ins with global giants in the diplomatic arena, the last fortnight has witnessed somewhat of a turnaround for Sri Lanka.

ENVIRONMENT: Australia Backflips on Climate Action

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party has made much of its plans to tackle climate change even before it came to power with victory in the country’s 2007 election.

JAPAN: Promised U.S. Base Relocation: Made to Be Broken?

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s disastrous visit this week to Okinawa island, host to the largest U.S. military bases in Japan, has highlighted a rocky road ahead for the country’s much awaited change pledged by the postwar democratic and socialist government that came to power in August 2009.

ECONOMY-GREECE: Convulsions Follow EU Shock Therapy

The firebombing of a bank by demonstrators protesting against severe austerity measures, which killed two women and a man, appears to Greeks as a sign of social deterioration arising from their country’s financial crisis.