POLITICS-BURMA: Emotions Peak As Suu Kyi Is Freed

Some were smiling, many were crying and others were shouting, but emotions overflowed among the hundreds of Burmese who had been keeping vigil for the latest release from house arrest of the country's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Syi.

China has New Wind in its Sails

The poppy argument between Chinese and UK politicians this week may not have escalated into a serious problem to derail British Prime Minister David Cameron's first official visit to Beijing but it was symbolic of how 150 years after the Opium wars the two powers are still talking across each other.

U.S.: Blue-Ribbon Panel Finds AfPak Strategy at “Critical Point”

The administration of President Barack Obama should begin shifting to a counterterrorism (CT) strategy requiring many fewer troops in Afghanistan if its pending review finds that the current counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy is not working, according to a new report by a bipartisan task force of 25 prominent analysts and former top foreign policy officials.

CUBA: Popular Knowledge Can Transform People’s Worlds

Valuing and sharing common people's knowledge and experience, awakening critical consciousness and finding paths for effective social participation are the processes used by more than 1,000 people in Cuba working in Popular Education, a liberating approach to education developed by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire in the 1960s.

HUMAN RIGHTS: Reading the Bones

Created with the aim of recovering the remains of the victims of forced disappearance from Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team has already worked in 40 countries and is expanding the scope of cases that it investigates.

U.S. Defaults on Vow to Reform Asylum System

Human rights groups say time is running out for the federal government to make good on a pledge to shift the country's immigration detention system to one that emphasises a civil rather than criminal approach.

U.S.: Looming Partisan Shift Adds Urgency to Nuke Treaty

When U.S. President Barack Obama capped a flurry of activity on nuclear non-proliferation this spring by welcoming the largest gathering of world leaders ever in Washington for a Nuclear Security Summit, many experts hoped to see cascading effects that would lead to even further elimination of nuclear weapons.

DEATH PENALTY: Execution for Drug Offences Challenged

Two Georgian women are facing the death sentence in Malaysia in a case that human rights campaigners say has highlighted worries over the continued imposition of capital punishment for drugs offences.

BALKANS: Rape Victims Fight a Mostly Losing Battle

It takes little to bring out the scars that many women who were raped in Bosnia still carry. Rumours, later shown to be unfounded, that Angelina Jolie would star in a film to be shot in Sarajevo on the war-time love between a Serb man and a Bosniak Muslim girl he raped, had women's groups lodging strong protests.

KOSOVO: Dragging Corruption Into the Net

Kosovo youths looking to address issues treated as taboo by mainstream media are taking increasingly to online activism. The new platform is being used particularly to fight high-level corruption.

G-20: Summit Shows Power Shift for Developing Economies

Currency and trade tensions may have grabbed the headlines from the two-day summit of the Group of 20 advanced and developed economies, but the bigger story is how the tables have turned and given developing countries a much stronger voice at the international negotiating table.

TIMOR-LESTE: Snipping Away at Youth Unemployment

In a small city where most of the 22,000 inhabitants rely on subsistence farming to put food on the table, one young woman has gone against the grain with a business venture that embodies the changing times in Timor-Leste, South-east Asia's newest and poorest nation.

IRAQ: Formation of New Govt Hailed (Tentatively) by U.S.

After an agonising eight-month delay, the first concrete steps toward the formation of a new coalition Iraqi government were greeted by senior U.S. officials here Thursday as a major advance in stabilising the long-suffering nation.

Outrage Mounts over Bush’s Waterboarding “Confession”

After a three-year investigation, President Barack Obama's mantra – "look forward and not backwards" – appears to have trumped the rule of law as a special prosecutor declined to pursue criminal charges against the Central Intelligence Agency operatives involved in the destruction of video recordings of interrogations of "war on terror" suspects.

ENVIRONMENT-ECUADOR: Plenty of Promises but Little Cash for Leaving Oil Untapped

The Spanish government is "analysing mechanisms to contribute" one million euros (1.3 million dollars) to the Yasuni-ITT initiative, one of the few definite contributions received by Ecuador for a scheme to leave oil reserves untouched in a highly biodiverse area of the Amazon jungle.

U.N. Chiefs Vulnerable to Manipulation by Big Powers

Since the creation of the United Nations over 65 years ago, successive secretaries-general have won re-election for a second five-year term mostly by currying favour with the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council: the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia.

BURMA: Junta’s Asian Friends Close Ranks, Endorse Poll

A political fault line has emerged just days after Burma’s junta held the country’s first election in two decades, one that was held on Nov. 7 with near military precision to ensure a sweeping victory for the military regime’s allies.

PERU: Mining Firms Alarmed at Election of Leftist Governor

The triumph of a left-wing candidate, Gregorio Santos, as governor of the region of Cajamarca, one of Peru's richest mining areas, has raised concern among mining companies operating there in a climate of tension and conflicts with local communities.

RIGHTS-CHINA: Stagnant Wages, Inflation Point to More Labour Unrest

Labour unrest appears to be far from over in southern China, although striking workers at the Japanese-owned Ricoh Elemex factory in Bao’an district in this city were recently forced back to work by local officials accompanied by around 400 armed police officers.

MIDEAST: Prisoner Speaks Out From Israeli Jail

Samer Hamdan*, a 26-year-old Palestinian prisoner, recalls being beaten until he bled. Seeing other prisoners covered in blood and screaming is the norm in the Israeli prison, he says.

Q&A: “There Is No War on Terrorism”

"The U.S. intentionally confuses al Qaeda with other groups around the world fighting for their independence or liberation, but it's [just] a convenient way to whip up support and get people very afraid," says author and journalist and Reese Erlich.