Two U.S. federal prisons are being used overwhelmingly to hold Muslim prisoners and prisoners with unpopular political beliefs, and are practicing religious profiling, retaliation and arbitrary punishment, according to a lawsuit filed by the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR).

The Cerro Blanco gold and silver mine in the southeastern Guatemalan province of Jutiapa, on the border with El Salvador, is under fire from environmentalists in both countries concerned about the threat it poses to the shared Lake Güija and rivers on either side of the border.

A 200-km oil pipeline that Franco-British oil group Perenco aims to build in the heart of Peru's Amazon jungle region is at the centre of a controversy because of the reported existence of uncontacted native groups in the area.

When world leaders meet in Washington later this month for a summit on nuclear security that is expected to include discussion of sanctions on Iran, they should also address the country's human rights situation, says Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi.

Fruit? Maybe a banana now and then. Vegetables? Onions, if they are chopped up in a stew. Meat? No, because they choke on it, and will only eat wieners. Carina Ramírez thinks her children are 'strange': they eat nothing but bread, pasta and sweets, 'and that’s why they’re chunky,' she says.

The efforts of the Barack Obama administration to maintain the secrecy of the counterterrorism policies of its predecessor, the administration of former President George W. Bush, hit a major speed bump last week.

A controversial government programmeme that enlists local police officers and sheriff's deputies to help enforce U.S. immigration laws is verging on being out of control and unable to assess whether it is meeting its stated goals.

While Iraq’s election was largely a domestic affair, efforts there to form a new government in the weeks after the March poll have been bogged down by a flurry of contradictory pulls and pressures by several international actors.

Elephant Pass conjures up images of the deadliest battles in Sri Lanka’s conflict with the Tamil Tigers. But today, tens of thousands of local visitors have been to visit the former war zone.

The executions of two Belarus citizens in March and calls by Russian senators to reintroduce capital punishment for terrorists are being seen as indications that the death penalty is not about to fade out soon in the former Soviet republics.