ZAMBIA: Hope for Women Politicians

Mirriam Kauseni is on a quest to become her town’s first ever female parliamentarian. She has yet to be elected to run for the post by her party, the Patriotic Front (PF), but Kauseni has already been conducting door-to-door campaigns, telling people to vote for her in the country’s national elections.

New Leadership for the ICC

As the International Criminal Court gears up to elect six judges and a new prosecutor, observers are warning that political rather than merit-based considerations could govern the evaluation of candidates.

Queer Film Fest Breaks India’s Social Glass Ceiling

More than a decade ago, when India’s first lesbian-themed film - ‘Fire’ by Deepa Mehta - was released, it was booed and met with protest and vandalism, forcing many fear-stricken theatre owners to take the film off their screens.

GEORGIA: Opposition Rallies in the Face of Repression

More than half of Georgia’s population still lives in abject poverty due to economic stagnation, worsening living standards, rising unemployment and low pay nearly nine years after the 2003 bloodless ‘Rose Revolution’ that promised post-Soviet economic revival, a new political course and better living conditions.

INDIA: Supreme Court Verdict Revives Euthanasia Debate

In a secluded hospital bed in this bustling Indian metropolis, a woman who has lain brain dead for 37 years after a brutal sexual assault is at the centre of a national debate on mercy killing.

SINGAPORE: Social Media Challenges Govt Grip

Weeks after a watershed general election in Singapore, the influential role played by social media to dramatically transform political debate in this affluent city- state continues to reverberate through cyberspace.

U.S.: House Votes Suggest Growing War Weariness

In a sign of growing war weariness in Congress and among the general public, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted Thursday to bar the deployment of U.S. troops to Libya and narrowly defeated a provision requiring President Barack Obama to submit a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

BRAZIL: Protected Witness Speaks Out – Part 1

Despite the risks involved, a man who is under the witness protection programme in Brazil and his wife decided to tell their story to IPS, to denounce flaws in a system that, in their case, has added neglect and isolation to the total anonymity in which they must live.

New Iran Sanctions Could Push Petrol Prices Even Higher

U.S. lawmakers have introduced a new package of unilateral sanctions targeting Iran that would challenge U.S. President Obama's discretionary authority to enforce such sanctions and would impose comprehensive restrictions on foreign entities that ship, refine or provide any other related services to Iran's energy sector.

Mideast Uprisings Underlie Falling Peace Index

The world has witnessed a decline in global peace over the last year, according to the 2011 Global Peace Index, or GPI, released by the Institute for Economics and Peace Wednesday.

Arrest Takes Serbia Towards Reconciliation, and the EU

"Nothing can bring back our husbands or children, but this means so much for us; the man who ordered them killed is finally going to face justice," says Hajra Catic, head of the Women of Srebrenica Association, following the arrest in Serbia of the former head of the Bosnian Serb army Ratko Mladic.

Prison Lobbyists Help Spread Anti-Immigrant Laws to U.S. South

Earlier this month, Georgia became the third state to enact some of the most anti-immigrant legislation in recent U.S. history, when Governor Nathan Deal, a Republican, signed the bill, HB 87.

Nascent Independent Unions Play Key Role in Arab Uprisings

In the Arab world, most trade unions are affiliated to governments, but independent labour organisations are starting to emerge.

OP-ED: The Sacred and the Secular – Promoting Muslim Democracy

The presence of religion in public space challenges our ideas about the roles of faith in our lives and politics. Over the last centuries, proponents of secularisation have claimed that as societies modernise, the role of religion in public and private life diminishes. For them, modern rationality, science, and the ideal of representative governments as sovereign replace religion as a source of authority, regulation, and security.

ZIMBABWE: Rural Women Voting With Their Feet

At independence in 1980, Loyce Tshuma (55), a villager in rural Tsholotsho in Matebeleland North, was a loyal believer in politics as a powerful vehicle to change and better lives. Since then she never missed an opportunity to cast her vote.

EGYPT: Political Punch with a Religious Thrust

More than three months since the fall of the Mubarak regime, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement is well on its way to forming its first official political party since its inception in 1928. But while the nascent party is to be based on "the principles of Islamic Law and respect for freedom of belief," some critics see this as a contradiction.

NEPAL: Women Battle for New Constitution

With the May 28 target for a new constitution approaching and Nepal’s coalition government admitting it would not make the deadline, women are pushing for rights they want enshrined in the document.

JAPAN: Woodpecker Finds Allies Against U.S. Helicopters

At the foot of the pristine Yanbaru forest at the northern tip of Okinawa, Japan, a small cluster of tents gives shelter to a group of protestors guarding the area against the planned construction of six new military helipads for the U.S. forces on the island.

U.S./SOUTH ASIA: Influential Think Tank Urges Long-Term Commitment

With public and Congressional debate hotting up over post-bin Laden U.S. policy in South Asia, a think tank with close ties to the administration of President Barack Obama is calling for a strategy that will keep Washington deeply engaged in the region for a long time to come.

A Dark Day for Brazil’s Amazon Jungle

The same day that the lower house of the Brazilian Congress approved a reform of the forestry code that would make it easier to clear land in the Amazon jungle for agriculture, a husband and wife team of activists who spent years fighting illegal deforestation in the rainforest were murdered.

CHILE: Dictatorship-Era Law Used to Squelch Activism

"What is happening in Chile isn't justice; it's a pantomime, because under the anti-terrorism law, there is absolutely no way justice can be done," José Venturelli, spokesman for the European Secretariat of the Ethics Commission against Torture, said on a recent visit to this South American country.