SRI LANKA: War May Cost Trade Benefits From EU

By refusing to allow the European Union to probe implementation of international labour and human rights covenants, on the grounds of sovereignty infringement, the Sri Lankan government may be jeopardising trade concessions and risking jobs in this country.

BURMA: Asia Europe Summit Can Help

By the end of this week Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will have spent 13 years under house arrest. By coincidence, the anniversary of her incarceration (Oct. 24) falls when the military junta will be represented in a summit between Asian and European leaders in Beijing.

INDIA/PAKISTAN: Picking Up The Peace Threads

India and Pakistan are trying to revitalise their mutual dialogue and pick up the threads of the peace process they launched in early 2004. This may be the last such effort before the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demits office by May next, if not sooner.

INDIA: Old Road New Role

Built during World War II as a strategic link between India and Burma, the Stilwell Road is now being resurrected as part of India’s ‘Look East’ policy of engaging its neighbours in South-east Asia.

TRADE: Little Scope For Europe-Asia FTAs

Plans to conclude free trade agreements (FTAs) between the European Union and several Asian economies are unlikely to be realised in the near future, a senior Brussels official has conceded.

DEVELOPMENT: IBSA – Where Elite Minorities Form the 'Political Majority'

Top social scientists from India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA), meeting here to set the backdrop for the mid-October third summit of the new bloc, are sobered by the thought that large sections of their populations remain excluded from the economic growth their governments boast of.

INDIA/US: N-Deal Wins Congress Vote – Problems Remain

While the United States-India civilian nuclear cooperation deal has cleared its final and toughest legislative hurdle, the U.S. Senate, and will soon be turned into law by President George W. Bush into law, New Delhi is not yet celebrating in a full-throated fashion.

ENERGY-LATIN AMERICA: PDVSA’s Growing Presence

Central America, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and islands in the eastern Caribbean are receiving more and more oil from Venezuela, while major refineries are planned in South America - at Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil, and at El Aromo, on Ecuador's Pacific coast.

POLITICS: IBSA Banks on Trade, Tourism

As the India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) grouping takes formal steps towards promoting tourism among the three countries, industry representatives say ‘real work’ needs to be done to pull together an initiative that must work across vast stretches of ocean.

DEVELOPMENT: IBSA Summit – Will South-South Cooperation Regain Clout?

The India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum will hold its third annual summit on Oct. 15 in New Delhi, India, the first such meeting after this trilateral body of countries of the developing South met with a serious setback at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations.

AUSTRALIA: Wary of Asia Pacific’s Modernising Militaries

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has warned that Australia needs to prepare for "the increased militarisation" of the Asia-Pacific.

INDIA/AUSTRALIA: Sticking to Uranium Export Ban – For Now

The Rudd government has reiterated its refusal to sell uranium to countries which have not signed up to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), such as India, despite supporting the decision by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to back the United States-India nuclear cooperation agreement.

CUBA: Nearly Two Dozen Countries Have Sent Aid

Accustomed for years to giving, rather than receiving, aid after natural disasters, the Cuban population is gratefully observing the near daily arrival of donations in the wake of the devastation wrought by hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which caused losses officially estimated at five billion dollars.

CUBA: "Few Deaths Do not Mean Storm Damages Were not Massive"

More than 2.5 million Cubans were evacuated by the civil defence system when hurricane Ike lashed the island this month. And although only seven people were killed, more than one million no longer have an intact home to return to.

ENVIRONMENT-AUSTRALIA: Top Expert’s Emissions Target Slammed

The Rudd government’s hand-picked climate change advisor’s recommended targets for reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions have been widely denounced by environmentalists and leading scientists.

CUBA: “Ike” Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Danger

Even before the ravages caused by Hurricane Gustav in the western part of Cuba have been fully assessed, Hurricane Ike made landfall on the northeastern shore of the island on Sunday, swept westwards out to sea on Monday, and is showing signs of powering up before slamming Cuban territory again.

LAOS: Questions Rise With Worst Floods in Decades

When local people in Laos talk about floods, they always look back to 1966 - the year the Mekong River burst its banks so fast that no one was prepared.

INDIA/US: Nuclear Waiver – Blow to Non-Proliferation

The special waiver granted to India by the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) from its nuclear trade rules is being seen as a massive setback to the cause of global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

INDIA/US: Lawmaker’s Disclosure May Torpedo Nuke Deal

Chances of the United States-India nuclear deal being completed have greatly receded with the release by a key U.S. lawmaker of a so-far-secret Bush administration document which says Washington will not sell sensitive nuclear technologies to India and will terminate nuclear commerce with it if India conducts a test.

NICARAGUA: Name and Identity for Thousands of Indigenous Children

Some 250,000 indigenous children and adolescents who had no legal identity in Nicaragua are in the process of being registered - an essential step towards achieving recognition of their basic human rights.

POLITICS: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Split on Georgia

Moscow’s decision to recognise the two separatist regions of Georgia as independent states has exposed the divergence of geopolitical interests within the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).