Region

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas will head to the General Assembly on Thursday with huge backing for his bid for UN recognition of statehood despite strong US and Israeli opposition. Abbas will make the case for Palestine to become a UN…

As a result of a constitutional challenge filed by the journalist Randall Rivera against Costa Rica’s Information Crimes Law, the Supreme Court has temporarily suspended parts of the controversial legislation, in particular Article 288 providing for prison sentences of between…

Protests continue in Cairo’s Tahrir Square after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi issued a decree last week, seizing wide-ranging powers and protections from judicial review or oversight. Morsi made the move one day after he helped secure a ceasefire ending Israel’s…

By Marcela Valente A wide-ranging reform of Argentina’s civil code is looking to replace traditional concepts of parental authority and control with one of parental responsibility, while expressly prohibiting corporal punishment for children and adolescents. “The changes are pursuing a…

By Mel Frykberg The ceasefire has brought extremities in Gaza. In the morning the coastal territory woke up bashed and bloody from one of Israel’s most intensive nights of bombardment since a week’s tit for tat violence broke out between…

By Fabiana Frayssinet A Nigerian diviner dances and sings next to a Brazilian priest of the Candomblé religion, brought to this South American country by African slaves, that is now being rescued from oblivion in school texts on national history…

Israel may resume its attacks on Gaza at any time if a truce that ended a week of bloodshed fails to hold, said Defense Minister Ehud Barak in a warning on Thursday. The ceasefire “can last nine days, nine weeks…

By Julio Godoy Between late 2009 and mid-2010, the German government, represented by its foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, made a case for dismantling B61 atomic bombs on German soil. The actual number of such weapons of mass destruction is a…

By R. Nastranis Church leaders from around the world have expressed solidarity with the much pooh-poohed and crisis-ridden Greece in a two-day visit to the country during which they met Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and All Greece as well…

Jody Williams, winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, calls for an end to Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. Williams chairs the Nobel Women’s Initiative and is author of…