Peru will begin to pay individual monetary reparations to victims and survivors of the 1980-2000 counterinsurgency war, with top priority put on elderly people in remote villages in the country's impoverished highlands, where most of the human rights violations took place.

Over recent years, Egypt has witnessed mounting tension between its Muslim majority and its sizeable Coptic Christian minority. But in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the site of ongoing mass protests against the ruling regime, members of both faiths chant in unison: 'Muslim, Christian, doesn't matter; We're all in this boat together!'

Judging from official propaganda in both Iran and much of the Arab world, the uprisings that toppled Tunisia's dictatorship and threatens Egypt's authoritarian regime is the direct descendent of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Italy is one of the most backward countries in Europe in almost every indicator of gender equality. This is despite the fact that in terms of advanced degrees and qualifications, women surpass men and, in the last 30 years, have reached positions of power in all sectors of the market and proven that a company improves with a woman at the helm, writes Emma Bonino, leader of the Radical Party, Vice President of the Italian Senate, and Honourary President of the Committee on Equality and Inequality.

The world is living through another major upswing in food prices. World food prices surged to a new historic peak in January, for the seventh consecutive month, as the FAO Food Price Index reached 231 points, up 3.4 percent from December 2010. The accumulated increase in food prices during 2010 amounted to 25% relative to the 2009 level, writes José Graziano da Silva, Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and Ekaterina Krivonos, Trade and Market Officer at FAO’s Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.

'Security Sector Reforms' (SSRs) have become the latest catch phrase in donor discussions on post-conflict peacebuilding around the world.

A spat between a Pakistani actress and an Islamic leader has emerged as a vivid revelation of a deep split across the nation between different sets of values.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is using brute force and intimidation tactics - similar to those deployed in Cairo - to suppress pro-Egyptian and Tunisian protests in the West Bank. However, despite PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his ruling Fatah party being all too keenly aware of their own tenuous grip on power, it appears Palestinians are not yet ready to rise up like their brethren in the region.

A decade after heavy floods wrecked havoc in Southern Africa, the region is better prepared to monitor and respond to seasonal flooding. This is thanks as much to the growing strength of transboundary institutions as it is to technical improvements.

Mustapha Suleiman, 27, from J Block east of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, crosses through gaps in the iron fence on the border carrying bread, water, meat cans and a handful of vegetables for Egyptian soldiers stationed on the other side.