After several tumultuous days, the streets of Tehran are relatively quiet. But the density of police and basij presence has given the city an air of suffocation. It is hard to breathe.

Southeast Asia is weeks away from getting its own regional human rights body, but not everyone is cheering the birth of this new mechanism due to be approved at a foreign ministers’ meeting here. Least of all the region’s vibrant human rights community, spread across the 10 countries that belong to the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Egypt elected the first Arab woman to parliament in 1957, but in the half century since, the most populous country in the Arab world has gone from being a leader in women's political participation to a lagger.

Used in electric car motors and wind turbines, neodymium, a 'rare earth metal,' is at the epicentre of the race between wealthy and emerging nations to create green technologies, while poorer countries appear to be relegated to spectator status.

Environment Minister Tetsuo Saito talked to IPS about Japan giving technical and financial support to developing countries and its goal of cutting its greenhouse emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Japan is the world’s fifth- largest greenhouse gas emitter.

Amid furious lobbying on both sides, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved landmark legislation Friday designed to reduce the nation's greenhouse emissions that contribute to global warming 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050.

Honduras is caught up in a crisis following the dismissal of the head of the armed forces for refusing to provide logistics and security for a non-binding referendum called by President Manuel Zelaya for Sunday, the legality of which is disputed by the courts and the opposition.

Doctors at the forefront of the battle against the H1N1 influenza virus in Argentina point out that the number of cases is far larger than the official figures reflect. But they also stress that the mortality rate, as a proportion of the much higher number of cases, is lower than people assume.

Rights groups in Slovakia have attacked new abortion legislation they say not only breaches women's rights to privacy and regulations on medical confidentiality but could force some women into undergoing risky, illegal abortions.

An investigation by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has revealed that former detainees at the U.S. Bagram airbase in Afghanistan were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs.