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Millennium Development Goals

Roxana Saberi Charged With Spying

India & Pakistan : Siblings/Foes

Anwar Ibrahim

Best Reporting on Environment of 2008 Prem Bhatia Award

DISARMAMENT: Japan Pushes for Progress in U.S. Nuclear Review

MIDEAST: Iran, Israel Spoiling for a Fight?

US-IRAN: Debate Over Military Action Against Iran Gains Steam

MIDEAST: How to Check Both Iran and Israel

POLITICS: What Will China Do With Its Veto?

Q&A: Sri Lanka Remains Defiant of U.N. Chief

POLITICS: Sri Lanka Garners Support Against U.N. Probe

POLITICS: Sri Lanka Locks Horns with UN over Experts’ Panel

POLITICS: Sri Lanka, Britain Spar Again Over Tigers

DEVELOPMENT-SRI LANKA: NGOs Brace for Tighter Gov’t Control

IRAN: THEOCRATIC REGIME SURVIVES THROUGH REPRESSION
By Elisabetta Zamparutti

COLOMBIA - BODY COUNT OF SLAIN JOURNALISTS
By Ignacio Gomez

A WIN-WIN PLAN FOR ICELAND, BRITAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS
By Hazel Henderson

MOSCOW AND HAVANA: FRIENDS FOREVER?
By Leonardo Padura

THE DECLINE OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
By Ignacio Ramonet

IRAN: New Budget May Add to Uncertainties, Political Strains
Analysis by Farideh Farhi*
HONOLULU, Hawaii - Iran's 347-billion-dollar budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year, finally approved by the Guardian Council in Tehran Tuesday - just days before its scheduled implementation on the Iranian New Year Mar. 21 - appears likely to add to the tensions and uncertainty that have bedeviled the country since the disputed June 2009 elections.
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Q&A: Sri Lanka Remains Defiant of U.N. Chief
Thalif Deen interviews DR. PALITHA KOHONA, Sri Lanka's Permanent U.N. Representative
UNITED NATIONS - The Sri Lankan government continues to challenge U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's right to appoint a panel of experts to advise him on the human rights situation - euphemistically called "accountability issues" – following the end of a protracted conflict against a secessionist group widely considered a terrorist organisation.
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POLITICS-BURMA: A Poll, Yes, But Not Political Change
By IPS Correspondents
RANGOON - In teashops and markets, the national election due this year in Burma is the talk of the town, so much so that Thuzar, who did not take part in the 1990 poll, is quite eager to cast her vote this time.
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NEPAL: Crippling Power Outages Throw Life Out of Gear
By Bhuwan Sharma
KATHMANDU - When it gets cold during Nepal’s winter nights, Yem Prasad Gurung turns on his heater run by liquefied petroleum gas. When it gets dark, he switches on the lights that rely on a solar inverter – and to make sure he gets water, he turns on a generator-powered water pump.
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MEDIA-ASIA: Exiled Radio Plays A Cat-and Mouse Game
By Lynette Lee Corporal
BANGKOK - For exiled journalists working on shortwave radio programming aimed at Burmese and Tibetan listeners, dodging the ‘enemy’ in the name of freer speech is often a cat-and-mouse game.
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POLITICS: The Pentagon's Propaganda Networks – Part 2
By Pratap Chatterjee*
WASHINGTON - Propaganda networks that conduct "psychological warfare" for the Pentagon have been in vogue for a long time. Mike Furlong, a senior Pentagon official who is now being investigated for running a covert network of contractors to supply information for drone strikes and assassinations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, had a long history of working in this field.
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VIETNAM: Salinisation, Drought Bring Worries to Mekong Delta
By Tran Dinh Thanh Lam
MEKONG DELTA, Vietnam - He has worked this land for half of 64 years and is known among his fellow farmers in Kien Giang province here in the Mekong Delta as ‘lao nong’, or the old master of rice.
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PAKISTAN: Attacks Bring Humanitarian Work to Virtual Halt
By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Mar 18 - Bomb attacks and threats to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have brought development work to a virtual halt in the lawless, volatile environment that is the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), located near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
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US-CHINA: Trade War Heats Up
By Eli Clifton
WASHINGTON - Relations between Beijing and Washington have been far from smooth since the beginning of the year.
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ENVIRONMENT: Blame on Chinese Dams Rise as Mekong River Dries Up
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - As the water level in the Mekong River dips to a record 50-year low, a familiar pattern of fault-finding has risen to the surface. China, the regional giant through which parts of South-east Asia’s largest waterway flows through, is again at the receiving end of verbal salvoes from its neighbours.
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DISARMAMENT: Japan Pushes for Progress in U.S. Nuclear Review
By Jamshed Baruah*
BERLIN - Japanese parliamentarians and activists pin high hopes on the hotly debated and much anticipated U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to which the Barack Obama administration is reported to be giving finishing touches.
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PAKISTAN: In More Ways Than One, Bollywood Dancing Creates Waves
By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan - Saleha Firdaus, a mother of two teenage children, has been moving to the Bollywood beat at a dance studio for over a year now and "loves every moment" of this personal time. For her part, 22-year-old Maheen Jafri was a "bedroom dancer" until she discovered a Bollywood and hip-hop dance studio and "shed my inhibitions totally."
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POLITICS: Afghanistan Spy Contract Goes Sour for Pentagon - Part 1
By Pratap Chatterjee*
WASHINGTON - Mike Furlong, a top Pentagon official, is alleged to have run a covert network of contractors to supply information for drone strikes and assassinations in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the U.S. government.
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THAILAND: With Blood Spilt, Political Wounds Far from Healed
Analysis – By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - A nearly four-kilometre arc of road that cuts through the historic part of the Thai capital, the site of the largest anti-government protests the country has seen in years, has brought into sharp relief a political wound that is far from being healed in this kingdom.
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RIGHTS-BAHRAIN: Weak Laws Let Rapists Off the Hook
By Suad Hamada
MANAMA - Cunning rapists in Bahrain can avoid victimising virgins so they could escape the maximum penalty provided by law, and those who force themselves on young girls can evade punishment by promising to marry their victims.
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IPS News Agency in its contribution to help strengthen the media in Afghanistan as a central pillar of independent civil society, has entered into a South-South agreement with Pajhwok Afghan News to broadcast special coverage of the country.

Flare-Ups In Sri Lanka

Tibet Dilemma

Trouble in Pakistan

Burma Marches On

Iran: The Parthian Shot

Development Deadline

Civil Society - The New Superpower

SRI LANKA In Search of Serendip

POLITICS-SUDAN: African Leaders Call for Peaceful Elections

U.S.: Families Sue Over Guantanamo Deaths

NIGERIA: Acting President Consolidates Power Amid Unrest

LATIN AMERICA: Still a Long Way to Go, for Black Women

ZAMBIA: School Policy for Teen Mothers a Partial Success

ECONOMY: Greek Crisis Impacts the Balkans

IRAN: New Budget May Add to Uncertainties, Political Strains

KENYA: State Insists Counterfeit Law’s No Threat to Right to Life

NEPAL: Crippling Power Outages Throw Life Out of Gear

GUATEMALA: Ok for Ex-President's Extradition to US Just One Step

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