The Peruvian justice system has the confessions of three convicted former ministers in the government of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), to support corruption charges against him, prosecutor Avelino Guillén told IPS.

Even as U.N. peacekeeping operations in the world’s battle zones continue to expand, women soldiers, police and civilian support staff remain a small minority – something that sorely needs to change, U.N. officials say.

Imagine looking at a Google Maps-like satellite image of the Amazon forest and with a mouse click find out what lives in that bit of forest - what tree and plant species are there, what animals, birds and insects.

Ugandans are unhappy with their tourism authority as they believe that their country’s warm climate and exceptional species, such as the mountain gorilla, should attract as many tourists as neighbouring Kenya. To compound matters, the global economic crisis has shrunk tourist arrivals from Europe.

The desperate need to find an alternative investor for the closed Luanshya Copper Mines (LCM) in Zambia’s Copperbelt has not prevented some Zambians from fiercely opposing the government’s decision to let Chinese-owned Non-Ferrous Metals Mining Company (NFCA) run the mine.

Egyptian cyber-dissidents are becoming increasing vocal in their online criticism of President Hosni Mubarak's regime, utilising a widening repertoire of Internet networking and publishing tools to expose government abuses.

At his inaugural ceremony Monday, the first-ever leftwing president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, said his main goal was to 'beat poverty, political backwardness, the marginalisation of broad sections of society, desperation, and the lack of future prospects for our young people.'

The world is on track towards negotiating a solid deal in Copenhagen at the end of this year, Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate change official, told reporters at the opening of a 12-day conference in Bonn Monday.

Sunday's announcement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Washington will begin talks with Cuba on bilateral migration issues and resume direct postal service between the two countries suggests the new administration of President Barack Obama intends to proceed cautiously toward normalising ties with the Caribbean nation, according to veteran experts here.

The International Criminal Court has struggled since its inception to realise its core mandate to prosecute the world’s worst human rights offenders, putting on trial propagators of genocide, war crimes and the inductors of child soldiers into civil conflict.