JAPAN: Nuke Refugees Face Uncertain Fate

Tadanori Anzai and his wife Michiko left their town in Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture, more than a month ago to escape the radioactive contamination spewing from the earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant located close to their home and tiny eatery.

CUBA: Month-Long Offensive Against Homophobia

LGBT social networks and experts with Cuba's National Sex Education Centre (CENESEX) announced Tuesday that events surrounding the Day Against Homophobia will last a month this year in this Caribbean island nation.

Osama the Symbol Not So Easy to Vanquish

Far from concluding the war on terror, both Western and Muslim-majority countries - many emerging or still embroiled in months of popular protests – will continue to face a threat from extremist ideology after the United States' decade-long campaign to capture or kill Osama bin Laden has come to an end, most analysts say.

A Fork in the Road of U.S.-Pakistani Ties

The U.S. discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden in a compound some 50 kilometres from Islamabad is a "defining moment" for a U.S.-Pakistan relationship fraught with duplicity and dashed expectations.

AFRICA: Coalition Against the High Cost of Living

In Burkina Faso, Niger, Kenya, Uganda: governments are worried by soaring prices - and by newly confident and enraged civil society. Governments are being challenged to take decisive action, despite lacking the tools to address rising global oil prices. Their responses could have important consequences for their legitimacy and survival.

U.S. Refusal of 2001 Taliban Offer Gave bin Laden a Free Pass

When George W. Bush rejected a Taliban offer to have Osama bin Laden tried by a moderate group of Islamic states in mid- October 2001, he gave up the only opportunity the United States would have to end bin Laden's terrorist career for the next nine years.

Mexico’s Use of “Green” Financing Questioned

While Mexico played host to a meeting for the creation of a Green Climate Fund, doubts have been raised over whether the millions of dollars in financing the country has already received in recent years have been effectively implemented to combat global warming and its consequences.

INDIA-PAKISTAN: Osama’s Death Changes Little

Osama bin Laden’s killing by U.S. troops, in a safe house adjacent to a Pakistani military academy in Abbottabad, may vindicate India’s charges that its neighbour is a haven for jihadist groups, but it will do little to change that reality.

EU-PAKISTAN: Bin Laden’s Death May Sour Relations

In a surprise address late Sunday night, U.S. President Barack Obama declared Osama bin Laden - leader of the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda and the world’s most wanted fugitive - dead. According to Obama, bin Laden was captured and shot in Pakistan’s Abbottabad city, just north of Islamabad. Within minutes of the announcement, leaders across the globe began to issue statements expressing their views on bin Laden’s death.

PAKISTAN: Quiet Town in Deep Shock

The killing of Osama bin Laden in the garrison city Abbottabad in Pakistan has sent shockwaves among its citizens.The city of 600,000 seemed grief-stricken. Most people avoid media persons, who have arrived here in droves in this most peaceful place in the violence-wracked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

CUBA: Professionals Awaiting their Chance

Cuba’s opening to private enterprise still leaves out many professionals who have yet to find a way to use their skills and potential in non-state industries, although they have not lost hope that the rules of the game will change.

TAIWAN: East Asia May Get its First Woman President

Taiwan may become the first country in East Asia with a female head of state if opposition Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen wins the island country’s fifth presidential election next Jan. 14.

Osama Death May Splinter Militants Further

The killing of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in an operation by the U.S. forces has dealt a serious blow to the beleaguered Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Israel Gathers Support from ‘Best Enemy’

First Egypt, then Syria, finally the Palestinians – while most Israelis concur with their Prime Minister that the revolutions, upheavals and shifting alliances closing in on their country have postponed peace prospects, remarkably, the evolving events convulsing the region may yet restore their country's battered legitimacy.

Flagged for Removal: Online Censorship on the Rise

The shutdown was surprisingly swift and almost total. In the midst of a popular revolution – one that was blogged, YouTubed, and Twittered in minute-by-minute cyber blasts – the Egyptian regime tightened its Internet spigot in late January, choking the free flow of information down to a trickle.

U.S. Celebrates Controversial Justice

By a few minutes before midnight on May 1, huge jubilant crowds had amassed outside the White House in Washington D.C. and around Ground Zero and Times Square in New York City.

MEXICO: Journalists Defy Violence, Self-Censorship

In Mexico, the country in the Americas facing the worst wave of violence against reporters, different journalistic initiatives are combating this dynamic, which fuels a tendency towards self-censorship.

Q&A: Child Victims Have ‘Leading Role’ in Creating a Non-Violent Society

Appointed to the gigantic task of building international understanding of violence against children and adolescents, 58-year-old Portuguese lawyer Marta Santos Pais is based in New York and works with a small staff of only seven people.

U.S.: Bin Laden’s Killing Could Alter Af-Pak, Other Policies

Sunday's killing of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden by a small, helicopter-borne team of U.S. Navy Seals could result in significant impacts on U.S. relations and strategy both in Pakistan, where the raid was carried out, and neighbouring Afghanistan, where it was launched, according to policy experts here.

SIERRA LEONE: Growing Pains for Local Councils

He was all over the place during the 2008 local council election campaign, but no one's seen the councillor since he won his seat, says Freetown journalist Ismael Bakarr. "He just disappeared."

Syria’s Crackdown Undermines Claim for Seat on Human Rights Council

When the General Assembly meets on May 20 to elect 15 new members for the Human Rights Council (HRC), the four candidates from the Asian Group - India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Syria - were until now considered certain winners for one primary reason: they remain uncontested on a "clean slate" for four vacant uncompetitive Asian regional seats.