DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Major Increase in Aid from Spain

Spain’s development aid to Africa has increased significantly since socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero took office in March 2004.

LATIN AMERICA: NGOs Under Fire

Civil society groups are facing smear campaigns and threats in Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, according to human rights activists and information gathered by IPS.

US/MEXICO: Neighbours Try to Reclaim Polluted Valley

A sinuous coil of murky water winds through the Tijuana River Valley. On each side of the U.S.-Mexican border, residents eye each other warily, caught in the cross-currents of political intrigue and economic polices that make the floodplain seem almost orderly by comparison.

BIODIVERSITY: Good Intentions Eclipse New Funding at U.N. Meet

The world community took some ever-so-careful steps towards slowing the biodiversity crisis at a major U.N. meeting in Bonn, while emphasising the need for urgency and action.

BURMA: ASEAN Steps in Where Others May Not Tread

Four weeks after Cyclone Nargis swept through the populous Irrawaddy Delta in Burma, a regional effort to help the victims is slowly grinding into shape.

POLITICS-AFRICA: U.S., China Should Coordinate Policies

Amid growing concerns over big-power competition for access to Africa's immense energy and mineral resources, the U.S. and Chinese governments are being urged to better coordinate their policies toward the continent.

BURMA: UN Gambles With Junta – Forgets History

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is optimistic that his four-day mission to military-ruled Burma has produced a breakthrough. But the troubled history of relations between the world body and the South-east Asian nation offers a warning against high expectations.

ECONOMY-SRI LANKA: Business as Usual Despite Rights Record

Is Sri Lanka's bloody ethnic conflict and dismal human rights record an issue for international corporations and multinationals doing business in the country? Business leaders and rights activists are divided on this.

BURMA: Earthquake Lets China Off the Hook

The outpouring of global sympathy in the aftermath of the deadly Sichuan earthquake has shifted the focus away from China’s role and influence in cyclone-stricken Burma, quieting critics.

TRADE-INDIA: 'WTO Market Access Proposal Unacceptable'

India has raised strong objections to the draft negotiating document on non-agricultural market access (NAMA) on trade in industrial products, released Monday by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

CHINA: Bowing in Grief, to Public Demand

The national mourning observed this week for victims of the Sichuan earthquake is the first public remembrance in modern China’s history ordered to commemorate ordinary people rather than political leaders.

BURMA: Public Health Ailing Even Before Cyclone Struck

Even before Cyclone Nargis tore through Burma’s populous Irrawaddy Delta, the country’s public health system was ailing. It struggled to survive on a slow drip of funds from the state’s coffers.

JAPAN/CHINA: Warming Ties

When China accepted Japan’s offer of expert teams to help with emergency relief, following last week’s devastating earthquake, it may have had more to do with improving ties between the Asian neighbours than with Japan’s expertise in handling such disasters.

PORTUGAL: Cuban Cataract Ops Prick Medical Conscience

Cuba’s offer to provide cataract operations for people who have been on waiting lists for years at Portugal’s public hospitals triggered a reaction by the government and doctors, who may finally begin to provide a solution to this problem that affects thousands of elderly people.

POLITICS-US: New Approach Awaited on Latin America, Cuba

More than 150 years after the United States promulgated the Monroe Doctrine, Washington should recognise that its dominance over the Americas has ended and that it must "engage Latin America on its own terms", according to a new report released here Wednesday by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), one of the nation's most influential think tanks.

TRANSPORT: Major Hurdle for IBSA Initiative

As the foreign ministers of India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) met in Cape Town on Monday, to take forward a unique initiative in South-South economic cooperation, a gathering of hard-nosed corporate captains from the three countries discussed the absence of adequate transportation facilities among the ‘IBSA’ members.

AUSTRALIA: Diffident on UN Grant of Larger Continental Shelf

While last month’s landmark ruling by a United Nations body granting Australia jurisdiction over an additional 2.5 million square kilometres of seabed has been hailed as a "potential bonanza", a leading expert on international law expects the government to proceed with caution.

DEVELOPMENT: Sweden, Ireland, Britain Lead in Aiding Africa

Sweden, Ireland and Britain top an index of 21 rich countries that ranks their commitment to help develop African nations. The United States, the world's largest economy, was a distant thirteenth, while Japan remains the least committed to the continent among rich nations.

BURMA: Foreigners, Cameras Banned in Cyclone-Hit Areas

Images of the dead keep trickling out of Burma. The most moving are those of children who died when Cyclone Nargis tore through their world in the populous Irrawaddy delta.

CHINA: Temblor – Test of Openness

As the death toll from a devastating earthquake in south-western China continues to climb, the disaster is proving a credibility test for the government, whose mandate is derived from maintaining stability and social order and providing for the welfare of people.

BURMA: 'Junta Aid Blocks Could Multiply Cyclone Toll'

Burma’s military regime may soon face charges of allowing tens of thousands of its own people to die through incompetence and bureaucratic red-tape placed in the way of international relief efforts for over one million cyclone victims in the country.