The United States Tuesday urged the government of Sudan and former rebels in the south to re-invigorate their 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), as 30 Sudanese political leaders met with 170 observers from 32 countries and international organisations here to discuss the faltering CPA, which expires in 2011.

The continuing occupation or Iraq and the growing war in Afghanistan are leaving permanent physical and emotional scars on a whole generation of U.S. soldiers. Not since Vietnam have so many GIs objected to a war, and never have military families spoken out so strongly for withdrawal.

Growing U.S. support for U.N. initiatives is raising hopes among those who want to see the world community take immediate and concrete action to tackle climate change, although their optimism is also tinged with scepticism.

Eleven days after Iran’s disputed Jun. 12 president election, the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears determined to round up key members of the opposition, journalists and human rights activists who could play a key role in rallying public support for opposition demands.

While the world's attention was riveted on the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama, an operation was surreptitiously being carried out Jan. 19-21 at the headquarters of Colombia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), which answers directly to the president’s office.

Serious allegations of corruption involving central figures in the government of right-wing former Salvadoran president Antonio Saca (2004-2009) will be investigated by a commission led by Finance Minister Carlos Cáceres.

When a major international conference on financing for development took place in the Qatari capital of Doha last November, the heads of both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) skipped the meeting.

Fiji has become the second Pacific island nation to confirm cases of the H1N1 flu virus following two positive tests returned over the weekend.

After years of lobbying by rights activists and the international community, Malaysia passed an effective and comprehensive law in 2007 against human trafficking with provisions for protection, shelter and return of trafficked person to their home countries.

More than 300 African refugees are gathered at the gates of the Moroccan United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), asking to be moved to another country because their rights are not respected in Morocco. Several refugees say they have been beaten up by Moroccan UN personnel.