The hiring hall for Hod Carriers and General Labourers Local 242 is in the basement of the Seattle Labour Temple, a two-story tan-brick building of early-20th century vintage. You walk down a flight of well-worn red-tile stairs and through the double doors.

While the European Parliament elections are raising many questions about the future direction of the EU, the practicalities of the precise make-up of the parliament mean that development policies look set to be put on hold until autumn.

U.S. President Barack Obama drew widespread, if in some quarters, guarded praise from around the region as he labelled the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, Israelis and the Arab world the No. 2 issue (behind the extremism of a minority of Muslims) that needs addressing if relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world are to be changed for the better.

In what was perhaps the most widely anticipated speech delivered by a U.S. president abroad in recent memory, Barack Obama Thursday extended a hand to the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims, receiving repeated applause and a standing ovation from the audience at Cairo University in the Egyptian capital.

For decades, Fidel Castro has been the most vociferous opponent of an eventual return by Cuba to the Organisation of American States (OAS), which he has referred to as a 'colonial ministry,' 'odious,' 'shameless' and 'rotten.' 'The OAS was the accomplice to all of the crimes committed against Cuba,' he also wrote.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s historic speech in Cairo Thursday elicited broad approval from around the U.S., with the notable exception of the neoconservative right.

A series of bloody attacks on Indian students in Australia, that many are convinced have racial undertones, threaten to undermine efforts to build relations between the two Asia Pacific countries.

As Iran’s conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fights for his political future against two reformist challengers in the June elections, Arash Sobhani, a lead figure in the country’s underground music scene, says it’s a very tough time to be an artist in Iran.

In 1994, hundreds of thousands of Tutsi were slaughtered by their Hutu neighbours, friends, and family members across Rwanda. Nine years later the killers came home from prison to live side by side again with their victims.

Mercedes Toyo has finally started to smile again after many years of tears and violence. But the bad memories linger. 'Now I’m being courted by a 50-year-old man who tells me I’m too wary, that I don’t let anyone get too close,' she told IPS in the living room of her house.