Crowds Vandalise Arab Embassies in Syria

Crowds supporting President Bashar al-Assad have vandalised at least two Arab embassies in the Syrian capital Damascus as Arab League foreign ministers gathered in Rabat to discuss formalising their suspension of Syria from the league.

Floods Leave Thai Economy Gasping

No guns are needed in this battle. Only the muscle of Thai soldiers defending a sprawling industrial estate on the eastern end of this city from an advancing enemy - flood waters.

/CORRECTION/*Italy’s New Cabinet – Politics without Politicians*

Of the 17 ministers nominated Wednesday by Italy's premier-designate Mario Monti, not one is a politician.

GUATEMALA: Incoming Government Has Its Job Cut Out

One of the highest poverty levels in Latin America, one of the highest murder rates in the world, and much-needed political and tax reforms are some of the pressing challenges that will face Guatemalan president-elect Otto Pérez Molina.

LIBYA: Headed for Some Sort of Sharia

The announced introduction of Islamic law in post-Gaddafi Libya has drawn strong opposition from women, the non-religious and the Amazigh minority.

CHINA: Only Business Occupies Shanghai

As China's financial centre and a pinnacle of domestic wealth, Shanghai could have been in the forefront of a home-grown movement against income disparity of the like sweeping New York's Wall Street and London's City.

CLIMATE CHANGE: A Rising Sea Threatens Pacific Islands

As world leaders gear up to spend the coming weeks in South Africa haggling over economically bearable cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is already exacerbating environmental conditions and threatening the lives and livelihoods of thousands of Pacific Islanders.

SYRIA: Beginning of the End for Assad?

Actions by the Arab League this week have given a regional seal of approval to Syrian opposition forces and could mark the beginning of the end of the Assad family dictatorship that has ruled Syria for more than 40 years.

U.S.: Occupy Wall Street Activists Vow to Fight On

After two months of holding New York City's Zuccotti Park despite repeated threats of eviction, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) activists were forcibly removed from the site by hundreds of police in riot gear early Tuesday morning.

No Aloha for APEC

As U.S. President Barack Obama sought to make headway on the first significant free trade agreement since NAFTA, a week of demonstrations protested the move.

Angolan Spring – Protests Shaking Up Authorities

Adolfo Andre knows what he wants for his country and says he will fight on until he gets it.

COLOMBIA: Perils and Lessons of U.S. Aid

A new report has highlighted a connection - and not always a positive one - between U.S. foreign aid to Colombia and Mexico and violence and crime rates in those countries, pointing out that U.S. policy toward Mexico deserves careful application of lessons learned from the aid the U.S. has supplied Colombia since 2000.

ECONOMY-PORTUGAL: Side Effects of IMF Medicine

A European Union economic forecast for 2012 indicates Portugal is the EU country that will grow the least.

Mexican Women Demand Climate Justice

After two weeks without water, the taps finally started running again in the home of Araceli Salazar and her neighbours in the poor, crowded neighbourhood of Iztapalapa on the east side of the Mexican capital.

TAJIKISTAN: Dushanbe’s Plane Caper Not Flying with the Kremlin

Memo to leaders of Central Asian nations that lack abundant energy resources: messing with Moscow usually backfires.

SRI LANKA: Alive or Beheaded this Maid is a Heroine

Will Rizana Fathima Nafeek return to this poverty-ridden coastal village in Sri Lanka alive and in one piece? Or will the beheading sentence passed on her by a Saudi Arabian court in 2007 be finally carried out?

CUBA: Co-operatives Set to Expand

The creation of co-operatives forms part of the current "updating" of the Cuban economy, even though no official information has been provided about the expansion of this form of business management, which has already been tested, with mixed results, in agriculture.

TUNISIA: Women Fearful of Islamists’ Rise

Tunisian women poured into the streets armed with the vote, their latest weapon, when the country voted in its first democratic election since a popular uprising unseated former president Zine Abidine Ben Ali, ending his 27-year- long stronghold on the country.

U.S.: Divide Emerges over Bounds of Occupy Protests

On Nov. 2, the day of Occupy Oakland's General Strike, the streets were filled with chants and music and the sounds of people speaking in the many tongues of Oakland residents.

China Will Need Many More Singles Parties

In a country of 180 million single people and a growing gender imbalance, tens of thousands of people across China went looking for love on Singles’ Day Nov. 11. But events on the day may only have helped point to the continuing and growing difficulty of being single.

Can BRICS Make a Difference at Busan? – Part 2

While experts are hopeful that blocs of emerging market economies like BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will play a major role in the upcoming aid effectiveness conference in Busan, South Korea, others fear that the new players do not yet have the fiscal power to make a serious intervention in fora generally dominated by rich donor states.