VENEZUELA: More Protests – and More Crackdowns

Rubén González, a 51-year-old welder who is the secretary general of the Sintraferrominera ironworkers union, has spent over a year in prison in Venezuela for leading a strike by hundreds of workers outside the San Isidro mine in Ciudad Piar, 550 kilometres southeast of the capital.

U.S.: And Justice for Few

Poor defendants on death row, immigrants in unfair deportation proceedings, torture victims, domestic violence survivors and victims of racial discrimination - all these groups are consistently being denied access to justice while those responsible for the abuses are protected, according to a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union.

RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Putting a Face to the Numbers

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist...." The celebrated quote by German anti-Nazi Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller remains frighteningly relevant today in some parts of the world, like Colombia.

U.S.: Judge Chastises Govt on Immigration Policing Lawsuit

Nearly a year after advocacy groups sought documents to clarify the Department of Homeland Security's "Secure Communities" programme, the government has largely failed to satisfy the requests for information, a federal judge has ruled.

Wikileaks “Gossip” Merely Annoying in Latin America

Although revelations by the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks concerning Latin America have caused irritation in the region, they have not had any significant effects so far.

HAITI: Envoys and Poll Officials Try to Defuse Tensions

After almost a week of violent protests over preliminary elections results that left at least five dead, Haiti awoke to an eerie and tense calm Monday after a well-coordinated trial balloon was launched late Sunday night.

ARGENTINA: New Campaign Calls Dropouts Back to School

Convincing young people who have dropped out of school to resume their studies is no easy feat. Which is why a group of social organisations in Argentina are joining with the government to launch a different kind of campaign to bring young people back into the classroom in 2011.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Emissions Punted to Durban, Breakthrough Seen on Forests

If success is measured by delaying difficult decisions, then the Cancún climate meeting succeeded by deferring crucial issues over financing and new targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the next Conference of the Parties meeting a year from now in Durban, South Africa.

Govt Accused of Fuzzy Math in Gitmo Report

A prominent public interest law firm that has defended numerous Guantanamo Bay detainees charged Thursday that a recent government report on a high rate of recidivism among former inmates is loaded with "vague and unsubstantiated claims and misinformation".

Of Wikileaks, Whistleblowers and Whipping Boys

As pro- and anti-Wikileaks forces draw their battle lines, and Wikileaks' impresario Julian Assange marks time in storied, overcrowded and very Victorian Wandsworth Prison in southwest London, a group of his supporters are taking a different tack.

BURMA: Ethnic Rebels Resist Junta’s March Toward Final Frontier

An ongoing clash along the Thai-Burma border, pitting Burmese troops against ethnic insurgents, is raising the spectre of more violence in areas that the Burmese military sees as the final frontier to putting the country under the grip of one army for the first time in over six decades.

GREECE: The Centre Is Falling Apart

The experience of walking through Omonia Square in downtown Athens can send shivers down the spine of even the calmest of visitors. In recent months, increased incidents of street crime, drug trafficking, and prostitution have turned the square into a site many citizens go to lengths to avoid.

SYRIA: Getting Away Legally With Assaulting Women

Iman Wannouss was just 21 years old when she was married off to a close relative. For the next two decades she gave up her work and raised three children in a loveless and violent marriage.

EUROPE: Legally, and Dangerously High

Eastern European youths have been getting high on "plant feed" or "bath salt" for over two years, catching up fast with Western European trends in drug abuse. Governments in the region are now scrambling to control use.

SRI LANKA: Fund Shortfall Slows Post-War Development

Some 19 months since the end of Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war, over 325,000 civilians displaced by the final bout of fighting between late 2007 and May 2009 have returned to live in their villages or with their relatives.

MIDEAST: New Poll Underlines Gloom Shrouding “Peace Process”

Hope among both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis that a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians can ever be achieved appears to be fading, according to two major new polls released here Thursday.

Debunking the Nuclear Deterrence Myth

When the horrors of the Cold War began to wane in the late 1980s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev met in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik to discuss the "complete abolition of nuclear weapons".

U.N.’s Message to Whistleblowers: “Kill the Messenger”

A rousing battle between former Under-Secretary-General Inga- Britt Ahlenius, who once headed the U.N.'s powerful investigating arm, and her boss Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is threatening to get ugly.

Q&A: “Create a Protocol Based on Non-Emissions”

Latin America should create regional conventions to protect biodiversity and combat the impacts of climate change, according to Ecuadorian environmentalist Yolanda Kakabadse, president of the World Wild Fund for Nature International (WWF).

Senate Hawks Push Obama on ‘Zero Enrichment’ for Tehran

Five senators sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama Monday warning the administration not to offer concessions in upcoming talks with Iran over its nuclear programme. If Obama takes the advice, experts say, it could sink his engagement efforts with Tehran.

CLIMATE CHANGE: India Ups Ante with Offer for Binding Targets

A rough yardstick for identifying which Asian countries make the biggest ripples in Cancún is the number of journalists who crowd around the spokesperson immediately after a press conference.