News stories by Gustavo Capdevila, page 4

The death penalty remains an apparently fixed feature in many societies because it enjoys the approval or consent of a large majority of the population, or is based on supposed ancestral values or traditions.

More than 1,000 activists and experts attending this week's Fourth World Congress Against the Death Penalty in this Swiss city are building a network of cooperation to support local organisations campaigning for human rights in countries that retain capital punishment.

Negotiations to form a trade alliance between countries of Africa, Asia and South America stepped up to a political level when ministers discussed the issue this week, giving the initiative a further boost.

The United Nations Human Rights Council set a firm precedent in favour of the international isolation of the de facto government that took over in Honduras after a Jun. 28 coup removed President Manuel Zelaya.

The head of Colombia's biggest association of indigenous people is concerned that allowing U.S. troops to use military bases in his country will signal a regression to former times when the United States exercised control over Latin America, while a native activist warned of an increase in the number of cases of sexual abuse of young indigenous women by foreign soldiers.

Noma, an ulcerous disease whose name comes from a Greek word that means 'to devour' because it literally eats away at malnourished children's faces in just a few months, is found in the developing world, mainly in Africa.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) expressed concern this week over the treatment received by indigenous communities in Peru.

The central focus of the WTO annual report - the tricky balance between the need to protect national production and the negative economic impacts of such measures during times of crisis - was actually chosen before the current meltdown, but turned out to be just what the doctor, or the world trade body, ordered.

The cautious tone taken by World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan when she declared an H1N1 influenza virus pandemic Thursday was only modified when she expressed concern over the potential effects of the virus in developing countries, and among young pregnant women in particular.

Colombia has long been the world leader in murders of trade unionists – a dubious distinction that it seems in no danger of losing, according to a new report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).