'It’s an all out war now,' said 45-year old Zubair Khan. He was talking to IPS over phone from Swat Valley, in the North West Frontier Province on 6 May the day after the Pakistan military began its operation to weed out militants.

Human rights advocates and legal scholars fear that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama may resurrect the military commissions designed by his predecessor to try Guantanamo detainees after Obama’s 120-day moratorium on proceedings expires on May 20.

A handful of motivated doctors, HIV/AIDS and human rights activists held rallies Tuesday in New York City and 20 countries to protest the imprisonment of Iranian doctors Arash and Kamiar Aleai.

Rosa M. was about to blow out the candles on her cake when the phone rang. Instead of another birthday greeting, she heard her coworker Gladys sobbing and asking her for financial help, because on her way to the party in the Venezuelan capital she had fallen prey to an 'express kidnapping.'

Kelly Johnson was just 28 when she was murdered by a former boyfriend at her Adelaide home last year. The mother of one was hit on the head with a frying pan and stabbed repeatedly with 'startling ferocity', according to Justice Trish Kelly, who handed down a mandatory life sentence to Johnson's killer, Daniel Hall, in February.

Um Abdullah cannot remember the last time she was able to feed meat to her eight children. She does know that for the past week the single meal she cooked for them each day consisted only of lentils. And that on one day, she had received aid coupons from the United Nations, which she subsequently sold to buy tomatoes and eggplant at the local market.

Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be arrested and harassed by the respective security forces of the divided Palestinian leadership. And from Israel, a belated freedom has come to cover Gaza, but amidst other concerns.

The European Economic Recovery Plan devised by the European Commission last year to help deal with the financial crisis is likely to fast-track environmentally damaging projects in the new member states.

The choice of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to become the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been hailed by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and national news media as ushering in a new unconventional approach to counterinsurgency.

Zimbabwe is trying to rebuild itself as a nation where rights to freedom of expression and association are protected. Amongst the chorus of voices raised in support of a new constitutional order are the country's gays and lesbians.