Iraq's upcoming parliamentary elections are widely considered a barometre of the country's progress and march toward stability, but they could also have a serious destabilising impact, as the U.S. prepares for a major reduction of its troops by August.

Let the rains fail, even for several successive seasons, and Malawi should still be able to produce enough to feed itself.


Months of delays may prove to have strengthened the process of producing a new constitution for Zimbabwe. When a 65-day public consultation finally begins, citizens will be primed and ready.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed Monday the official document inviting Chile to join the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), making it the first South American member of the 'rich countries' club'.

Through the 'My Name Is Not XX' campaign, the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation is working to identify the remains of thousands of victims who were forcibly disappeared during the country's 1960-1996 armed conflict, by inviting their relatives to provide DNA samples.

Two separate bomb attacks on Internet cafes in Gaza last week have served as an uncomfortable reminder that extremist groups within the coastal territory may be stronger than the moderate Hamas organisation which rules the strip.

In the past, whenever there was even a semblance of pressure from Washington on Israel, nerves in Jerusalem went all a-jangle.

'We aren’t going to be browbeaten by acts of cowardice and would continue exposing Taliban and (other) militants,' said an angry Shamim Shahid, president of the Peshawar Press Club (PPC).

'It is important that we all come together, the Green Party, NGOs and citizens, on major issues such as pollution in big cities or deforestation,' says Remus Cernea, the new executive president of the Romanian Green Party. 'And we have to use all means, from public protests and working with the media to judicial action and party politics, in order to achieve our goals.'

A court ruling in military-ruled Burma has brought into sharp focus a law the junta widely uses to go after civilians it wants to silence.