When the news of the global financial crisis broke in Ghana last year, the then-President John Kufuor said the country’s economy was insulated against the effects of the credit crunch being reported in Europe and the United States. There now seems to be an admission now that ripples are being felt.

Fears that the state apparatus controlled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is laying the groundwork for possible fraud in Friday’s presidential election appear to be growing among his two reformist challengers and their supporters.

The victory of the Western-backed coalition in Lebanon’s Sunday elections will likely allow the U.S. to avoid making tough decisions about how to deal with the country had the opposition, led by an armed Islamist militia, won.

'The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) is our only hope for achieving justice, because it is not contaminated or compromised,' Eduardo Rodas Marzano, the brother of murdered lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg, told IPS.

Dismissive of warnings that the Korean peninsula stands on the brink of war, China contends North Korea’s recent provocative actions are yet another illustration of brinkmanship aimed at attracting the U.S. attention. Beijing decried the North’s nuclear tests in late May, but remains uncommitted to tougher sanctions against the impoverished Stalinist nation.

The 19th World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa, which kicks off tomorrow, is a space ‘‘for the rich and powerful elites who control the global economy and who seek to further open Africa’s economy in collaboration with a tiny minority of corrupt elites in Africa.

After watching the murder of her husband and his three wives by Charles Taylor’s rebels, Fatu Bonah and her seven children fled into the dense forest to hide. 'The rebels burned down our home and when I returned my in-laws had taken the land,' she says. 'I went to the town chief, who tried to resolve it, but the family refused, saying they had already taken over the land.'

Fears that accession to an economic partnership agreement (EPA) in Southern Africa will destroy regional integration seem to be coming true after Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (BLS) ignored a key provision of the Southern African Customs Union when they initialled their trade deal with the European Union last week.

There are conflicting reports on a violent incident in Peru’s Amazon jungle region in which both police officers and indigenous protesters were killed.

The EU could meet all its electricity demands from renewable energy sources such as wind and the sun by 2050 if governments take the right decisions now, leading environment and energy experts say.