Lebanon could be stepping closer to joining the WTO following years of political instability that have held up reforms.

Like many women in East Timor, 34-year-old Mariquita Soares joined the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN) party during the nation’s 24-year resistance struggle against Indonesian occupation from 1975 to 1999.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is stuck between a rock and a hard place in its Iran policy. On the one hand, the recent unrest will take time to percolate into a reformed Islamic Republic. On the other, time is in short supply if the U.S. hopes to stop Iran progress toward a nuclear weapons capability.

His visit to the U.S. this week was meant to be a show of statesmanship, much different than when he was in Washington last time.

What remains of Palestinian civil rights is rapidly being eroded by the dictorial Palestinian governments that respectively control the divided Palestinian territories.

The presidents of South America's main trade bloc, Mercosur, demanded at their summit in Paraguay Friday the unconditional, peaceful return of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama announced his intention to sign the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), in what will be the U.S.'s first signing of an international human rights treaty in over a decade.

The enthusiasm for Brazil today on the economic front and the lead role played by its government in the international arena are in stark contrast with the inertia dogging the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), the regional integration project and trade bloc that has been one of its priorities since the 1980s.

Mariana Rangel is filled with nostalgia as she gazes at the abandoned installations of the Dos Estrellas mine, where she worked as a secretary for six years. 'Those were years of prosperity; this is all there is left,' she tells IPS, pointing to what used to be the local hospital.

Fifty years ago, a small group of Palestinian teachers and engineers living in Kuwait founded a secretive movement aimed at liberating those portions of previously British-ruled Palestine that became the State of Israel in 1948.