ELECTION-WATCH: Countdown Begins to Southern Sudan Referendum

"We want an independent country of our own that is Southern Sudan, and we want a new country". Calm and with a passion in his voice, the secondary school teacher, John Kiri, a native from Juba explained the excitement he is feeling for Sunday’ referendum.

U.N. Chief Leaves Women out of Year-End Summing Up

When Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote a year-end op-ed piece for an Australian newspaper last week, he talked about the future of a world body facing a new generation of threats: climate change, poverty, nuclear disarmament and human rights.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Judiciary On Trial

Rights activists hope that a contempt case before India’s Supreme Court will add impetus to calls for greater accountability in the judiciary, the integrity of which has been seriously questioned in recent years.

TRADE: China Opens New Markets for Asian Economies

In response to growing labour costs, China is increasingly turning to its neighbours to supply what it once produced locally - raw materials and intermediate goods, such as machine components and parts - to retain its international reputation as the ‘factory to the world’.

Q&A: Portugal’s Development Aid Untouched by Crisis

Despite the global economic crisis that has hit Europe especially hard, Portugal's official development aid to its former colonies will not decline this year, although "unfortunately no increase is expected either."

MIDEAST: Parents Unite Across Violent Borders

With Middle East peace talks at a standstill, a group of activists is taking matters into its own hands. The Parents’ Circle Families Forum, a group comprising Palestinians and Israelis who have lost family members in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, aims to build a bridge between the two fractured communities.

The Peace Dividend in South Sudan

This is the story of Francis Odong, a southern Sudanese man from Eastern Equitoria state.

Tribe Warns of War over Sudan Vote

A tribal leader in Sudan's flashpoint region of Abyei has given a war warning, six days before south Sudan votes on whether to split from the north.

How Afghanistan Became a War for NATO

The official line of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO command in Afghanistan, is that the war against Afghan insurgents is vital to the security of all the countries providing troops there.

HUMAN RIGHTS: Mauritian Sex Workers Demand Rights

"Sex workers rights are human rights", close to a hundred people shouted during a recent march in Rose-Hill, a major town in Mauritius. Their aim was to sensitise the population, particularly the parliamentarians, to the state of sex workers on the island.

AFPAK: Give Us This Day Our Weekly Drone

Hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders have fallen to drones since the first attack that killed Taliban leader Nek Muhammad in South Waziristan. Now many local people welcome drones.

EGYPT: Church Bombing Fuels Sectarian Rift

It was a tragic year for Egypt’s minority Coptic Christian community that began with a drive-by shooting at a church in southern Egypt, and ended in deadly clashes near Cairo after authorities halted construction of a church. As 2010 came to a close, Copts ushering in the New Year with a midnight mass in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria wondered if 2011 would be any better.

AFPAK: Bombed Schools Feed Illiteracy, And Militancy

"I have now hired a house in the adjacent Dera Ismail Khan district where my three daughters are studying in a school," says Jamil Shah Wazir of the militancy-riddled South Waziristan. Getting girls to school is a real struggle here.

PAKISTAN: Blasphemy Law Carries Over Into New Year

In the face of protests and a nationwide strike called by hardline religious parties against any changes to the blasphemy law, Pakistani Christians have had little to cheer about over the Christmas and New Year season.

MIDEAST: Israelis Resist Their Own Arabs

A number of recent incidents discriminating against Israel’s Palestinian minority has prompted Israeli Knesset (parliament) members to debate whether Israel is becoming increasingly racist.

U.N. Threatens Ivorian Leaders With Possible War Crimes

The United Nations has warned the beleaguered president of Cote d’Ivoire and his military leaders that they may well go the way of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir: face charges of war crimes and genocide before the international criminal court.

Tunisian Unrest Stirs Arab World

As Western countries were busy celebrating Christmas and dealing with air traffic holiday delays because of snow blizzards, the tranquil North African country of Tunisia was going through events that would have been thought unthinkable just three weeks ago - public unrest that saw thousands demonstrate against the regime of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.

BURMA: Junta’s Drug ‘Exports’ to China Test Economic Ties

As military-ruled Burma prepares to unveil its new political cast, an enduring link between the junta and the country’s notorious drug lords is poised to come under the spotlight.

SOUTH AMERICA: Closer to a Palestinian State

With the string of announcements in South America of recognition of a Palestinian state this month, the region's integration process showed a new interest in and capacity to reach common positions in the realm of foreign policy.

GUATEMALA: New Law Hits Drug Cartels, Corrupt Officials Where They Hurt

A new law that will allow Guatemalan courts to seize goods and assets obtained through illegal activities, including drug trafficking and corruption, is being hailed as the new hope in fighting organised crime.

EASTERN EUROPE: Playing Dice With Migrants

Over the past years, acceptance rates for asylum-seekers in Central and Eastern Europe have been decreasing slowly but steadily. Even for those who do receive protected status, life is a gamble.