The head of Colombia's biggest association of indigenous people is concerned that allowing U.S. troops to use military bases in his country will signal a regression to former times when the United States exercised control over Latin America, while a native activist warned of an increase in the number of cases of sexual abuse of young indigenous women by foreign soldiers.

Since 2001 China has become an increasingly active member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and proponent of open and competitive markets, but yesterday the WTO released a report saying that China has violated WTO protocols by restricting imports of DVDs, software and books and limiting the ability of foreign suppliers to distribute their own products in China.

Basir 'Steve' Ahmed was returning from a bomb-clearing mission in Khogyani district in northeastern Afghanistan when a suicide bomber blew up an explosive-filled vehicle nearby. The blast flipped the military armoured truck Ahmed was riding in three or four times, and filled it with smoke. The Afghan translator had been accompanying the 927th Engineer Company near the Pakistan border on that October day in 2008 that would forever change his life.

After a string of corruption allegations were levelled against Xanana Gusmao’s coalition government, a civil society organization in East Timor Thursday launched an anti-corruption campaign it says will help tackle East Timor's endemic corruption head on.

Taking in a classical music concert, learning to make films or attending a literary workshop are no longer activities reserved for the elite in the Uruguayan capital. In addition to the existing initiatives offered by the city government, a new project is under way to promote cultural production and recreation among the poor.

The European Union has pressurised Ghana to sign an economic partnership agreement (EPA) despite civil society concerns being raised about the detrimental effects further trade liberalisation will have on development in the West African country.

Has the just-ended Fatah party convention, concluded in a cavalcade of personnel change, affected the prospects for a two-state solution that might finally resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Activists here are stepping up their campaign to urge Australia's parliament to pressure the Japanese government to formally apologise to, and compensate, so-called 'comfort women', a euphemism for women across the Asia Pacific region who were forced into sexual slavery by Japan's military during the Second World War.

Several groups across Eastern Europe have called for a crackdown on mafia-run job agencies amid reports that their members are raping and torturing migrant workers who have lost their jobs in the economic crisis.

The satellite receiver has speeded up the process of wiping out the cultural heritage of Morocco's Berbers. Old traditions are now dying out under the influence of television imams.