News stories by Andrea Lunt, page 2

The rebel group that terrorised Ugandan civilians for more than two decades, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), could continue to haunt the people of Central Africa if the Ugandan government fails to properly support demobilisation efforts, according to a new report released Monday.

Political leaders have committed to ramping up restoration of the world's forests and tackling poverty in forest communities as part of pledges made at the ninth session Forum on Forests, which wrapped up at the United Nations headquarters in New York last week.

Cairo's pro-democracy movement stretched from Tahrir Square to Times Square Friday, as hundreds of people gathered in New York City to urge the worldwide community to throw their support behind the Egyptian peoples' fight for self- determination.

It's the land of freedom, of bright lights and burgers, where daring entrepreneurs arrive from across the planet in search of fame and fortune. The United States of America - the world's melting pot - has been a symbol of hope for centuries, but behind this vision of wealth and wonder is a tale often untold.

One of the world's largest mining organisations, Barrick Gold, is in damage control this week following the release of a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report outlining longstanding incidents of sexual and physical violence at the company's Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) mine in Papua New Guinea.

Earlier this month, on a hot and humid day in the Jambi province of Indonesia, a group of local farmers was critically injured after being shot as they attempted to harvest fruit on a contested palm plantation.

Freedom of the press could be seriously impacted across the world in the wake of the ongoing political revelations brought about by whistle-blowing websites such as Wikileaks, one of foremost constitutional law experts in the U.S. said Tuesday.

United Nations officials said they were 'gravely concerned' Wednesday that the current political deadlock over recent presidential elections in Cote d'Ivoire could ultimately lead to genocide, as both sides of the conflict consolidated their forces.

Fresh calls emerged Wednesday for Haiti to void its recent disputed presidential elections, following a new analysis from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) showing serious and unprecedented flaws in the Nov. 28 voting process.

A new report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) charges that China has largely failed to meet the commitments laid out in its first-ever National Human Rights Action Plan (NHRAP), introduced in 2009.