JERUSALEM, Aug 06 (IPS) - The fresh Palestinian-Israeli peace drive stems from the realisation by all parties involved in the process that diplomatic isolation constitutes a strategic threat to Israel. This isolation whip will be held above Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's back for as long as it takes for him to agree to the pre-1967 lines as basis for the end of the 46-year occupation.

SYDNEY, Aug 05 (IPS) - The Australian asylum policy of rejecting boat arrivals has been condemned by the United Nations Refugee Agency, Pacific island leaders, migration experts and human rights organisations.

NEW YORK, Aug 05 (IPS) - "First the bugs began to disappear," says Eriel Deranger, spokesperson for Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

SANTIAGO, Aug 05 (IPS) - Nearly a quarter century after Chile's return to democracy, there is still a lack of political will to legalise therapeutic abortion, analysts say, even though Congress is debating several draft laws on the question.

HAVANA, Aug 05 (IPS) - For Cubans, baseball is not a sport, much less a game: it is almost a religion, and taken very seriously.

ST. GALLEN, Switzerland, Aug 05 (IPS) - An accident in a flagship project threatens the future of geothermal energy in Switzerland. The mishap that was followed by earthquakes has come as a warning that geothermal deep drilling still has a long way to go.

El HAWAMDIA, Egypt, Aug 05 (IPS) - Each summer, wealthy male tourists from Gulf Arab states flock to Egypt to escape the oppressive heat of the Arabian Peninsula, taking residence at upscale hotels and rented flats in Cairo and Alexandria. Many come with their families and housekeeping staff, spending their days by the pool, shopping, and frequenting cafes and nightclubs. Others come for a more sinister purpose.

KWAZULU-NATAL MIDLANDS, South Africa, Aug 05 (IPS) - On a winter's afternoon in late July, potato farmer John Campbell and the Endangered Wildlife Trust's Tanya Smith surveyed the Umgeni Vlei Nature Reserve from a hilltop on Ivanhoe Farm in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.

CAIRO, Aug 04 (IPS) - Egypt's military chief, General Abdel Fatah El-Sissi, who in July announced on state television that the army had ousted Egypt's first democratically elected president, has tried to wrap a veneer of democracy around actions that most others have condemned as a coup.

KOLKATA, India, Aug 03 (IPS) - India's matinee idol Shah Rukh Khan and his wife Gauri Khan announced recently that they had their third child through surrogacy. Gossip columns said that Gauri Khan, a mother of two teenagers, had tried to conceive for the last couple of years and at last resorted to surrogacy.