Caribbean Civil Society Unites to Tap EU Development Funds

Roosevelt King, the secretary general of the Barbados Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (BANCO), believes that Caribbean governments have dropped the ball when it comes to their commitment to support the initiatives of civil society.

Obama Plays Down Plan for Post-2011 Iraq Troop Presence

When the Barack Obama administration unveiled its plan last week for an improvised State Department-controlled army of contractors to replace all U.S. combat troops in Iraq by the end of 2011, critics associated with the U.S. command attacked the transition plan, insisting that the United States must continue to assume that U.S. combat forces should and can remain in Iraq indefinitely.

THAILAND: Jails Fill Up with Political Prisoners – Critics

The jails in Thailand are filling up with political prisoners, critics say, but how many political dissidents have been incarcerated since a military crackdown on an anti-government protest movement ended on May 19 remains shrouded in mystery.

PAKISTAN: Schools Cross Extremism Out Of Textbooks

Turn schools into hate-free zones, and achieving peace in violence-wracked Pakistan may not be far behind.

Fears for South Africa’s Press Freedom

International media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranks South Africa's press as among the freest on the continent. Two proposed new measures are drawing unfavourable comparisons to repressive laws in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.

MIDEAST: Darkness Dawns at Ramadan

"It's been days without electricity and water. We can't do anything, and it's unbearably hot now." Abu Fouad, 83, speaks of the power cuts plaguing all of the Gaza Strip.

AFGHANISTAN: Task Force 42 and Task Force 121, the Other Secret Killers – Part 3

When Wikileaks, a whistleblower website, released 76,000 incident reports from the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the exploits of a secret military "capture/kill" team called Task Force 373 was revealed for the first time.

AFGHANISTAN: Task Force 373, the Secret Killers – Part 2

When Danny Hall and Gordon Phillips, the civilian and military directors of the U.S. provincial reconstruction team in Nangahar Province, Afghanistan arrived for a meeting with Gul Agha Sherzai, the local governor, in mid-June 2007, they knew that they had a lot of apologising to do.

COLOMBIA: The Violent “Agrarian Counter-Reform” Conspiracy

An unknown number of agribusiness owners and public employees at all levels, as well as far-right paramilitaries, have a common link with rural people who have been forced off their farms or killed in Colombia: the land stolen from the latter group in the armed conflict.

AFRICA: Maputo Protocol a Work in Progress

Kenyans are still euphoric over the referendum endorsing a progressive new constitution; but the heat generated by its opponents around their main rallying point - abortion rights - is a reminder of the wide gap between law and implementation in Africa, particularly when it concerns women's rights.

The Mystery of the Vanishing Squid in South Atlantic

Environmental factors, lack of cooperation and overfishing have caused a sharp fall in catches of squid in the southwestern Atlantic ocean, the most important fishery in the world for this species.

ISRAEL-LEBANON: U.N. Treads Cautiously in Probe of Border Firefight

Three weeks after a fatal exchange of fire between Israel and Lebanon along the U.N.-demarcated Blue Line, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has yet to make recommendations on easing tension at the border.

AFGHANISTAN: Task Force 373, the Secret Killers – Part 1

"Find, fix, finish, and follow-up" - also known as F4 - is the way the Pentagon describes the mission of secret military teams in Afghanistan which have been given a mandate to pursue alleged members of the Taliban or al Qaeda wherever they may be found. Some call these "manhunting" operations and the units assigned to them "capture/kill" teams.

POLITICS: Cambodia Seeks to Internationalise Temple Row with Thailand

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is threatening an international showdown with neighbouring Thailand over the vexed question of managing a 10th- century Hindu temple, an architectural jewel of Cambodia’s ancient Khmer civilisation.

PHILIPPINES: Past Starting to Haunt New President

The past, centred around the democratic records of his popular politician parents, may have sent Benigno Aquino III to the Philippine presidency, but it is now also biting at his heels, less than two months after he assumed office.

DEVELOPMENT-PAKISTAN: Flood Aid Exposes Distrust of Gov’t

Inundated by appeals through text messages, email and Twitter, as well as in print and broadcast media, that call for donations of dried rations, hygiene kits, buckets, tubs and cooking pots, and straw mats, Ambreen Siddiqui feels lost in trying to help her fellow Pakistanis amid the country’s worst floods in decades.

Chernobyl Effects Could Last Centuries

Almost 25 years after the world’s worst nuclear accident a series of new scientific studies have suggested the effects of the Chernobyl disaster have been underestimated.

MIDEAST: Stitching Together a Living, Somehow

Just off Omar Al-Mukhtar Street, Gaza City's main thoroughfare, in a narrow, sandy alley way is a little second-hand clothing shop. In the dimly lit store, with only intermittent electricity for some hours a day at best, sits a single battered and aging sewing machine.

Q&A: “Women Are the First to Cook and the Last to Eat”

Three hundred women from more than 30 countries converged in Canada last weekend for the Montreal International Women's Conference 2010 (MIWC), with the aim of building a global militant women's movement in the 21st century.

New Book Assembles Eyewitness Accounts from Mavi Marmara

A growing number of activists is contradicting the claims of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) regarding the Gaza Freedom Flotilla debacle in May, including a large faction of both Israeli and U.S. Jews.

Q&A: “Feminism Doesn’t Bite”

After more than a century of existence, feminism is still around in Latin America and the world, but the history of this ideology that seeks equality for women is like a succession of breaking waves, with peaks and troughs.