Until Monday, Omar and Khaled Al-Habil were the owners of a 20m fishing trawler staffed by five or six fishermen at a time, but employing around 18 in cycles. But that morning the vessel came under heavy Israeli navy machine-gun fire, and then shelling. The trawler caught fire.

It is a walk that no one has taken in the last quarter of a century. The nation having been beset by a bloody sectarian war, who would have thought of travelling the length of Sri Lanka south to north, let alone walk the distance, in the name of peace?

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is turning its attention to a western corner of military-ruled Burma to end the scourge of forced labour, which remains rampant in most parts of the South-east Asian nation.

Geoff Bahnert, 46, had been holding on to a secret until he decided it was time to speak out to ease the agony and pain of keeping it: As a child he was sexually abused, first by his female babysitter and then by an old man involved with his baseball club. All along he thought it was his fault and no one would believe him if he told his story.

Italy is in many ways a country of contradictions, known for its beautiful beaches and vulnerable coasts, its staunch Catholicism and growing intolerance towards immigrants.

Burma’s military regime is turning to a familiar strategy — sending in troops — to impose its will on the north-eastern corner of the country that shares a border with China’s Yunnan province in the east. The move shatters a 20-year peace deal with an armed ethnic rebel group that controls part of that mountainous terrain.

A group of 125 non-governmental organisations from 50 countries is calling on the governments participating in the mini-ministerial trade talks in India over the next two days to reject the further liberalisation of food and rather promote policies that will achieve food security and rural development and safeguard farmers’ livelihoods.

Only 12 months after the meltdown of the U.S. financial system and the ensuing taxpayer-sponsored government bailout, the pay of the nation's top Wall Street chief executive officers (CEOs) is beginning to bounce back to pre-crisis levels, according to a new study on executive compensation released Wednesday.

Partial results in Afghanistan's presidential polls tend to favour President Hamid Karzai with Abdullah Abdullah, former foreign minister, trailing in second place. Kabul lawmaker Ramazan Basherdost who is at third place, seems to have garnered more votes than former World Bank economist, Dr. Ashraf Ghani.

Speaking at the Elliot School of International Affairs, the ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, encouraged the Barack Obama administration to take a harder line against the de facto government that was set up after the military forced him from the country in June.