Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Pres. Barack Obama in Washington next Monday, amid speculation that their two administrations may be heading for a confrontation worse than any they have known since 1991-92.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is attempting to reinvent itself with the global financial crisis, in the process using the opportunity to promote policies that exacerbate the recession by shrinking rather than growing economies.

Women’s rights groups have urged the establishment of a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission in Zimbabwe as part of bringing to justice people who committed human rights violations - including sexual abuse against women - during the run-up to a second-round presidential vote in June 2008.

Israel has found a cheap and easy way to get rid of its waste, much of it hazardous: dump it into the West Bank. A few Palestinians can be bought, the rest are in no position to complain.

In the months since U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have taken office, there has been lots of noise made about the relationship between the two men and their respective countries.

A surge in reports of missing children has set off alarm across the Egyptian countryside. The fears are being fed both by reports and rumour.

China is battling hard to contain the spread of the swine flu after stringent border checks and draconian quarantine measures of Mexican nationals failed to prevent the virus from entering the country.

In recent years, Egypt has witnessed increasing participation by women in grassroots political activism. Local civil rights advocates attribute the phenomenon to novel means of communication and organisation, especially the social networking website Facebook.

The Peruvian government resumed talks with indigenous groups after a violent crackdown on protests left 10 injured and around 20 under arrest. But the dialogue has not yet brought results, and the demonstrations against decrees that affect indigenous lands and the rainforest continue, while a state of emergency remains in place in several Amazon regions.

Celebrities and environmental organisations held a vigil at the Brazilian Congress in an effort to block passage of a bill that they say could cause an even greater 'environmental disaster' in the Amazon jungle.