News stories by Amanda Wilson, page 2

The U.S. State Department Wednesday released a statement criticising what it said was a 'deteriorating' human rights situation in Uganda and the government's increasingly heavy- handed tactics to repress political opposition and silence dissent.

When Mona Kareem, a member of the Bidoun population of Kuwait, was 11 years old, a neighbour Kuwaiti woman asked her where she was from. When Kareem answered, 'I am Bidoun,' the woman laughed at her. 'There is no country called Bidoun. There is no Bidoun.'

High-level United Nations officials and advocates of U.S. involvement in U.N. peacekeeping initiatives in Washington this week urged lawmakers to continue and even ramp up support for the operations, which they say benefit U.S. security interests, protect civilians, and prevent failed states.

High-level United Nations officials and advocates of U.S. involvement in U.N. peacekeeping initiatives in Washington this week urged lawmakers to continue and even ramp up support for the operations, which they say benefit U.S. security interests, protect civilians, and prevent failed states.

Foreign aid could be one of the first items on the chopping block as the United States struggles to address trillion- dollar deficits in the coming fiscal years, a fate U.S. international development agency officials are trying hard to avoid.

As a light drizzle fell Saturday, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu pointed to solar houses constructed by students on the National Mall park in Washington as evidence that the U.S can compete internationally in the renewable energy market to create jobs and win 'the war against climate change'.

Imagine a class of 24 children, three of whom take performance enhancing medicines that increase their chances of scoring high on standardized tests. Now quadruple that number, with one half of the pupils popping pills and the other pushing their pencils med free.

In the seemingly lawless global free-for-all to lay claim to reserves of the world's most precious remaining natural resources, experts warn that 'cowboy mining companies' are plundering the earth's riches and leaving little left for the rest.

As leaders from two of the world's largest financial institutions, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, met for annual meetings here Tuesday, a delegation of activists from India called on the World Bank to follow through with its proposal to dramatically cut funding for coal-burning power stations.

Changes to a key anti-bribery law that applies to international commerce, proposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, could have disastrous consequences, hurting multinational firms, human rights, and the U.S.'s place of respect as an early adopter of the legislation, opponents to the changes argued here Friday.