The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has come under growing fire for its poor treatment of would-be immigrants held in detention - including a number of controversial deaths, lack of medical facilities, administrative bungling resulting in loss of records, and absence of due process for detainees at ICE detention centres.

'This bill seeks to address the compelling need for us as a nation to have indigenous participation in the industry.' With these words, Nigeria’s acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, signed the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Bill into law.

Policies and initiatives by multilateral development banks (MDBs) to support the private sector in developing countries need to be carefully reviewed and reformed to ensure they are reducing poverty and protecting human rights and the environment, according to a new report by a coalition of six major non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Each January, a giant pulse of water from heavy summer rains over the south of Angola enters the Okavango River system and begins a five-month journey through Namibia to a richly biodiverse swamp in Botswana's Kalahari desert. The river is a rarity, scarcely disturbed by human development along its 1,100 kilometre length: shaping its future is the delicate task of the Okavango River Basin Commission.

The global economic crisis is projected to hamper progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and will directly impact MDGs related to hunger, child and maternal health, gender equality, access to clean water and disease control, according to a report released Friday by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

'We do not see a real willingness on the part of Europe to take Central America's interests seriously,' Guatemalan deputy minister for integration and foreign trade Raúl Trejo said in Brussels, at the final round of negotiations for a treaty between the two regions.

It was a historic moment for the United Nations when, 10 years ago, the Security Council unanimously recognised 'the intrinsic role of women in global peace and security' through Resolution 1325, said Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury of Bangladesh at a panel at the U.N. Thursday on the continuing obstacles to its implementation.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing a Colorado sheriff it says held a man for 47 days with no charges, no opportunity to see a judge and no opportunity to post bail, simply because federal immigration officers suspected that the man was in the U.S. in violation of federal immigration laws.

The Barack Obama administration's declaration in its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that it is reserving the right to use nuclear weapons against Iran represents a new element in a strategy of persuading Tehran that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites is a serious possibility if Iran does not bow to the demand that it cease uranium enrichment.

If anything was left clear by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the long-running pulp mill dispute between Argentina and Uruguay, it was the weakness of rules and regulations to prevent pollution of the Uruguay River in the 508-km stretch shared by the two countries.