After nine years in captivity, a U.S. federal court has ordered the release of a Guantanamo prisoner once described as the 'highest-value detainee at the facility' - and set off a firestorm of protest from Republican lawmakers.

On the evening of Apr. 26, 1998, as Bishop Juan Gerardi returned to the parish house at St. Sebastian's Church, three blocks from the seat of national government in the heart of the Guatemalan capital, he had no idea it would be the last day of his life. That night, his head was bludgeoned with a concrete block.

Apas Kubanychbek, who hails from the high mountainous area of Ysyk-Ata in the Chuyskaya province of Kyrgyzstan, was involved in the political movements and democratic struggles of the former Soviet republic in the early 1990s.

A Special Operations Forces raid on Feb. 12 on what was supposed to be the compound of a Taliban leader but that killed three women and two Afghan government officials demonstrated a fatal weakness of the U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan: after eight years of operating there, the U.S. military still has no understanding of the personal, tribal and other local socio-political conflicts.

Recent research by Greenpeace suggests that French state-owned company Areva’s public claims of decontamination of populated areas near uranium mines in Niger are false. High radio-activity persists in towns and rural areas near the mines, affecting some 80,000 people.

The police 'picked me up, they put me in the back of the car. Then they took me to (locality withheld) and beat (expletive) me, and they left me there,' a young person of African background said in a new study into the treatment of youths of African background by Australian police in Melbourne.

President Barack Obama has made plain he means to deconstruct Israel’s 43-year-old grip on East Jerusalem. But, for all Washington’s pressure, Israel seeks to tighten its hold on the occupied part of the city.

A once-in-a-century drought in south-west China has sparked concern over how China, which has one-fifth of the world’s population but just 7 percent of its water, has managed its water supply and growing network of hydroelectric dams.

Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), rocked Egypt's political arena last year by announcing his desire to contest the presidency. But while the idea has fired the imagination of political activists, many analysts remain sceptical.

The morning after the Thai troops’ bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters here, the mood among them remained as it was after the guns had gone silent only hours before. The red shirts, called such because of their signature protest colour, appeared defiant, edgy and, in some cases, victorious.