Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling for an immediate investigation of Kenyan security officials it says were sent to protect civilians in the country’s northeastern Mandera district during the move to disarm the heavily militarised region in October 2008, but who beat and tortured those civilians instead, according to the report released Monday.

Sri Lankan journalists are laying aside their pens once again and bracing for renewed confrontation with President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government after the revival of the repressive Press Council and fresh attacks on the media.

Sunday’s coup d’etat shows that in Honduras, democracy - which was restored in 1982 - is still hemmed in by the military’s alliance with the economic and political powers-that-be, according to local analysts.

Six months into his new job as president of the United States, Barack Obama inspires more public confidence than any other political leader, said a new WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) poll released here Monday.

While mass demonstrations in Iran are dwindling – with large gatherings and the opposition appearing largely paralysed by the authorities’ crackdown – the crisis there is causing a return to prominence for groups of Iranians living in the West: the exiles who have long advocated regime change in Iran, sometimes by armed means.

In this South Asian nation, people fondly remember a pop-singer who stole many hearts

If the Obama administration needed a rogue nation to demonstrate its foreign policy resolve, central casting couldn’t have supplied a better candidate than North Korea. The government in Pyongyang routinely promises to unleash destruction of biblical proportions on its enemies. It has pulled out of international agreements, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has sentenced two U.S. journalists to 12 years of hard labour on the charge of violating its borders. And after conducting two nuclear tests, it now declares itself a nuclear power.

The alleged rape and murder of two women by Indian troops in the remote Shopian district of Kashmir state has triggered renewed calls for demilitarisation of the Indian part of Kashmir, with street protests running for close two a month now.

Newly released research from experts and refugee advocates paints a clearer and perhaps surprising picture of the plight of Pakistan’s rapidly growing population of internally displaced persons (IDPs).

In a region where indigenous human resources are scarce, the oil-rich Gulf countries are not only mindful of population growth, but are quickly learning to address the concerns of the elderly.