Briefing the press on her recent trip to Afghanistan, during which she oversaw the signing of a landmark Action Plan to prevent the recruitment of child soldiers into the armed forces, Special Representative to the Secretary General Radhika Coomaraswamy honoured the success but acknowledged that the world still has a long way to go.

Last year's severe drought in the Amazon will pump billions of tonnes of additional carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, a new report has found.

Around the world, peoples revel in anticipation of the fall of a regime that has denied its citizens their basic rights. But most Israelis are haunted by nightmare scenarios of 'the day after', as if their country's stability was anchored in the continuity of the rule of Hosni Mubarak — not in peace.

A hunger strike by migrants is emerging as a test case for how far migrants can go to fight for rights, and how far the government can go to clamp down on them.

A government plan to control online media has sparked widespread protest from journalists and lawmakers who say the move is a sign of the ruling party’s desperation as it prepares for a 'do or die' general election.

A young Malaysian’s legal battle to escape the hangman’s noose in Singapore is finding new hope. 'He has a 50-50 chance of being spared,' Madasamy Ravi, the lawyer appearing for 23-year-old Yong Vui Kong, said in a telephone interview from the city-state.

'The moral reserve of this country is low. People have let too many things happen without taking to the streets…and they continue to let them go by,' peace activist Pietro Ameglio told IPS in this Mexican border city.

'One of the things we will be taking to Dakar,' says Onyango Oloo, 'is [knowledge of] how not to organise a World Social Forum.'

On the eve of massive planned protests dubbed 'Day of Departure' in Egypt, continuing attacks by pro-government conspirators on anti-government protestors and roundups of human rights activists and foreign journalists are contributing to pressures on the administration of President Barack Obama to take a tougher line, including withholding military aid, toward the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The extraordinary events of January 2011 in Egypt should prove one point for good: Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, U.S. presidents wish their favoured Arab states would forever remain nice, docile autocracies.