Western officials leaked stories to the Associated Press and Reuters last week aimed at pressuring the outgoing chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, to include a summary of intelligence alleging that Iran has been actively pursuing work on nuclear weapons in the IAEA report due out this week.

Attorney General Eric Holder's decision Monday to investigate whether interrogators from the Central Intelligence Agency or its contractors violated any federal laws in applying 'enhanced interrogation techniques' to detainees in U.S. custody overseas triggered immediate criticism from human rights advocates and appeared to widen the partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats.

For decades now, privacy in personal electronic communications has existed only on paper. But the most serious aspect of the espionage scandal that broke this year in Colombia lies in the use given to the information that was gathered.

Will the world take the easy step to phase out 'super' greenhouse gases – hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) - using the existing Montreal Protocol ozone treaty? Doing so would be equivalent to preventing the release of 118 to 224 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050, according to a report by the Environmental Investigation Agency.

A case brought by election integrity advocates in Georgia claiming that unverifiable electronic voting, or E-voting, is unconstitutional could spell trouble for the controversial practice, as it heads to the Georgia Supreme Court for a ruling.

Five years after the tragic fire that destroyed the Ycuá Bolaños supermarket in the Paraguayan capital, leaving a death toll of 400 people, the courts at last confirmed the prison sentences of the four principal defendants, although compensation for survivors and victims' families has still not been decided.

The death of nine people following this month’s riot directed against a Christian colony in eastern Pakistan has cast a pall of gloom over a nation carved out from the Indian subcontinent in the name of religion.

It’s 'do or die' for the world’s oldest customs union. Disagreement over the development consequences of the EU’s proposed economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with African states has threatened to split the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) a year before its centenary in 2010.

Save the living environment and the physical environment will automatically be saved, according to E.O. Wilson, the world's leading biologist and father of the online Encyclopedia of Life, which plans to create a web page for every known species - all 1.8-plus million.

For the first time, feminists in Bahrain are seeking new Islamic perspectives on gender and women's empowerment, and asking for modern interpretations of the Quran.