ENVIRONMENT: Climate Change Debate Rises with Pakistan Floods

"If this is not God’s wrath, what is?" 40-year-old taxi driver Bakht Zada said of the massive floods in Pakistan that have swept away his life earnings.

MIDEAST: God Grant Us a Permit to Pray

For Muhammad el-Baradiyeh, 38, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is always a blessing.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Women Traders “Blocked” From the “Big Business”

"Africans do not believe women can do big business," fumes Zambian trader Angelica Rumsey.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Land Reform Underfinanced and Failing

Mavis Muchena sits on the veranda of her mud hut, a middle-aged single mother of four with a face worn beyond her years and hands creased from working the soil. She should represent the future of a renewed farming boom in Zimbabwe, but instead she represents its failure.

Americas Social Forum Calls for Agriculture Based on Solidarity

Small-scale agriculture based on the principles of solidarity and cooperation is the only way to guarantee food sovereignty in Latin America, said peasant and indigenous activists meeting in the Paraguayan capital this week.

Beleaguered U.N. Chief Under Political Microscope

In South Korea, Ban Ki-moon is a prestigious brand name - like Samsung, Kia, LG and Hyundai.

Israeli Generals and Intel Officials Oppose Attack on Iran

Pro-Israeli journalist Jeffrey Goldberg's article in "The Atlantic" magazine was evidently aimed at showing why the Barack Obama administration should worry that it risks an attack by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran in the coming months unless it takes a much more menacing line toward Iran's nuclear programme.

MEXICO: Oil Workers at Sea Without a Safety Net

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has reawakened concerns about labour conditions on Mexican drilling platforms.

POLITICS-BURMA: After 20 Years, Junta Picks November Poll Date

By finally announcing the date of the country’s first general election in 20 years, Burma’s military regime has lived up to a promise it made in its seven-step "roadmap", a blueprint in its desperate quest for political legitimacy.

CHILE: Mapuche Prisoners on Hunger Strike to Demand Talks

The families of 32 Mapuche prisoners on a hunger strike for a month in different prisons in southern Chile have come to the capital to denounce irregularities in their trials and push for dialogue with the authorities.

ECUADOR: All-Out Offensive Against Child Malnutrition

The Ecuadorean government aims over the next five years to eradicate chronic malnutrition among children under one -- 10 percent of whom are now undernourished -- and reduce the rate among children under five from the current 22 percent to seven percent.

SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Jobless Youth Still Waiting for Better Times

Tanya Athikom’s search for a permanent job in the information technology sector has so far resulted in a string of disappointments. The Bangkok resident has thus been forced to accept short-term contracts in local and multinational companies here in the Thai capital.

PERU: Unearthing Victims of the Christmas Massacre

The families of 40 villagers murdered in Peru on Christmas Day in 1984 are camping out next to the eight graves in which their loved ones were buried, to keep watch over the slow, painful process of exhuming the bodies, a task that is being carried out by the public prosecutor's office.

White House Questions Suspension of Military Aid to Lebanon

Several powerful members of Congress have worked to suspend U.S. military aid to Lebanon's military after a deadly skirmish on the Lebanese-Israeli border last week which left two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and one Israeli officer dead.

Imprisonment of Judge Reflects Poorly on Venezuelan Justice

"One day more, one day less," says María Lourdes Afiuni when she says hello or goodbye to her thousands of followers on Twitter. The Venezuelan judge has spent the last eight months in prison, because she decided that a defendant should be released on bail pending trial.

US: Immigration System a Broken Behemoth, Groups Say

One year after the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama announced that it intended to overhaul the country's heavily criticised immigration detention practices and create a "truly civil detention system", a new academic paper bolsters claims by human rights groups that real reform is still a long way off.

COLOMBIA-VENEZUELA: Sea Breeze Helps Restore Relations

"The Santa Marta breeze cools off any conflict, it calms tempers. The city is the ideal place for the Santos-Chávez summit," Colombian journalist Ernesto McCausland wrote on his Twitter blog ahead of Tuesday's meeting, which indeed patched up relations between Venezuela and Colombia.

Americas Social Forum Celebrates Change in Paraguay

The Fourth Americas Social Forum kicks off Wednesday in the Paraguayan capital with a colourful march through the streets, as some 12,000 people prepare to take part in the activities organised by 50 local groups and 550 organisations from Argentina to Canada.

BALKANS: The Turks Return

It's not often that the leading Belgrade daily Politika devotes two of its four foreign pages to the praise of one nation, but it did so for the visit of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month.

JAPAN: Foreign Caregivers’ Language Exam Triggers Debate

Wahyudin dreams of becoming a full-fledged caregiver, if not a certified nurse, in Japan. But the Indonesian worker must first pass the required Japanese-language national certification examination, which is far from easy.

PHILIPPINES: Gov’t Smokes Out Tobacco Industry with Higher Taxes

Tobacco multinational Philip Morris may have had good reason to send out victory smoke signals when Filipinos elected Benigno Aquino III to be president in May. After all, he is a regular smoker who has said he will not quit the habit.