A grouping of six civil society organisations (CSOs) has called on the South African government to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

When Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva addresses a meeting of world leaders next week, he is expected to proudly claim that his country has already met — and exceeded - one of the key U.N. development goals: reduce by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and hunger.

Less than four months before a scheduled referendum on independence for southern Sudan, the administration of President Barack Obama is intensifying pressure on both Khartoum and the south's leadership to establish the necessary pre-conditions for the vote and any transition that follows it.

Human rights groups welcomed the revocation by the Peruvian Congress of a law that created a statute of limitations in human rights cases, which had sparked a flurry of criticism from home and abroad.

Local fishers objected to the creation of a new no-fishing marine protected area off the coast of Belize in 1996. Today they are benefiting from the bounty of fish spilling out of the Laughing Bird Caye National Park. Tourism has also boomed, illustrating the multiple benefits and value of marine protected areas, according to a new series of reports released Wednesday by Conservation International (CI).

The Mexican government's subsidies for corn (maize) production since 1994 have benefitted large- and medium-scale growers, to the detriment of small farmers, according to a new study by Mexican and U.S. researchers.

During a round of media interviews last month, Gen. David Petraeus released totals for the alleged results of nearly 3,000 'night raids' by Special Operations Forces (SOF) units over the 90 days from May through July: 365 'insurgent leaders', 1,355 Taliban 'rank and file' fighters captured, and 1,031 killed.

Mordechai Orian, president of Global Horizons, a Los Angeles- based labour recruiter, has been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for 'engaging in a conspiracy to commit forced labour and document servitude' of approximately 400 Thai citizens who were brought to work on farms in the U.S. between May 2004 and September 2005.

Travelling without documents to the United States from Latin America can turn into an odyssey, in which migrants have to elude common criminals and drug traffickers along the way, not to mention the laws on migration. But now another obstacle is emerging: a wall between Guatemala and Mexico.

While the recovery from the financial and economic meltdown remains fragile in especially the developed world, the outlook for Africa inspires optimism, according to UNCTAD. The agency also believes the crisis might be the death- knell for the export-led economic growth model -- especially African countries should leave it behind.