Fears of a trade dispute with Canada have made European Union officials reluctant to categorise tar sands from North America as a more polluting fuel than conventional petrol.

Janoshini Maurasini shakes like a leaf each time the sea belches a thunderous roar. And the 29-year-old mother of two has good reason to be nervous: Maurasini only narrowly escaped with her life in the Indian Ocean tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004, which killed over 35,000 of her fellow Sri Lankans within minutes.

When out-going Colombian President Álvaro Uribe charged Thursday that leftist guerrilla commanders from his country are in hiding in neighbouring Venezuela, he went a long way towards ensuring that his successor, Juan Manuel Santos, will inherit a volatile diplomatic dispute.

Scientists participating in the 18th International AIDS conference that opens in Vienna Sunday promise to share more information on vaccine research.

China's interest in Africa is frequently portrayed simply as that of a rising economic power seeking natural resources. Deborah Brautigam argues that this portrayal misses the full complexity of business relations between China and the continent.

The African Union summit opens in Kampala on July 19 amid heightened security following twin bomb attacks a week earlier. The official theme of child and maternal mortality will likely be overshadowed by discussion of the AU's mission in Somalia.

Nigeria is a place where many more deals are announced than are ever completed. But July saw progress towards the construction of one of three new Nigerian refineries that were the subject of a memorandum of understanding between the Nigerian and Chinese governments earlier in the year.

Thirty-six-year-old Luo Fusheng left his hometown in China’s Jiangxi province a decade ago to look for work to help support his family. Unskilled and with limited education, Luo eventually ended up in the factory city of Shenzhen, more than 700 kilometres to the south, where he now works as a security guard.

Both U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Friday denounced Thursday’s suicide bomb attacks on a Shi'ite mosque in Sistan-va Baluchistan province in southeastern Iran by a Sunni extremist group that Tehran charges is being supported by Washington.

On the eve of World Day for International Justice, launched to recognise the emerging body of international criminal law, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) faces an uncertain legacy. Initially slated to finish its work in 2008, the ICTY is two years behind schedule and at least four years from the final thump of its gavel.