Plans to create a regional human rights body for the ten-nation South-east Asian bloc are threatening to expose the gulf that separates countries that seek to respect political and civil liberties and the notorious violators.

The fiercely anti-Islam Dutch MP Geert Wilders has been traveling through the U.S. this week on a highly-publicised trip to meet with politicians, promote his controversial film ‘Fitna’, and raise money for his legal defence back home.

Sitting on a rickety bench outside the dispensary of Dr. Abdul Jalil at Deh Bublo, Issa Mallah, a centenarian, watches the world go by. He says he comes to this ‘city’ everyday to buy his groceries.

As Sri Lanka’s armed forces battle the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in their last stronghold, the island country’s influential neighbour, India, is weighing diplomatic options to goad President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government to save civilians trapped in the war zone.

South-east Asian governments are examining the possibility of using a seven-year-old regional mechanism, known as the ‘’Bali Process,’’ to find an answer to minority Muslim Rohingyas fleeing ethnic cleansing in military-ruled Burma.

The fast deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka - caused by the lingering armed conflict between the government and rebel forces - demands immediate action on the part of the U.N., a leading international human rights organisation said Friday.

While most mainstream press reaction to President Barack Obama's whopping 3.5-trillion-dollar 2010 budget has naturally focused on its far-reaching - even historic - implications for the U.S. domestic economy, experts here say it also marks at least the beginning of potentially important shifts in U.S. foreign policy.

President Barack Obama has given military commanders a free hand to determine the size and composition of a residual force in Iraq up to 50,000 troops, apparently including the option of leaving one or more combat brigades or bringing them from the United States, after the August 2010 deadline for the ostensible withdrawal of all combat brigades now in Iraq.

As José Luis reached the bus stop, he saw a crowd of furious local residents smashing shop fronts, cars and telephone booths. Without giving it much thought, he threw himself into the mob that broke into a small supermarket, triggering the worst social uprising and biggest massacre in the last 100 years in Venezuela.

Colombia’s FARC guerrillas admitted to killing eight Awá Indians who they accused of being army informants. Expert on military affairs Ariel Ávila said this indigenous community in the war-torn province of Nariño had formed vigilante 'self-defence' groups.