Alaa Hassan never lived to see publication of the last story he had filed. It got caught for a while, as stories sometimes are, in that no-man's land between what a correspondent could reasonably get, and what an editor would really like. The two do not often converge...
LONDON - The Taliban are beginning to regain influence in the south of Afghanistan, according to an independent group actively engaged in local work in the region. They are also increasingly confronting government and coalition troops inside Afghanistan, says the...
LONDON - The war on terror is provoking more terror, Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan told IPS in an interview Tuesday at the launch of the human rights group's 2006 annual report. "The war on terror and the way it has unfolded actually is...
Women were far better off under former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein, a women's group has found after an extensive survey in Iraq. "Under the previous dictator regime, the basic rights for women were enshrined in the constitution," Houzan Mahmoud from the Organization...
For the last two years he has grown no poppy, and his family have begun to feel the pinch. This year, this farmer from Nangahar province in Afghanistan plans to resume poppy cultivation. And not just he but thousands of others, and not just in Nangahar province but...
LONDON - Western powers are already planning use of the military option in the face of Iran's insistence that it will go ahead with what it calls its nuclear research program, a leading expert says. ''The military option is being considered already, they are just not...
The beginning of the pullout of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip presents two contrasting pictures of two very differently placed people. While the Israelis are looking at comfortable compensation packages, thousands of Palestinians face the threat of starvation...
LONDON - Just about the last defense of the police who killed Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes in London July 21 was that they had seen him running. New evidence suggests he was not running, but sitting on the train when he was grabbed and shot. The new...
That an innocent Brazilian was shot dead on the London Underground is tragic; but the near-justification of that killing by the police is frightening. The police have now openly declared a shoot-to-kill policy, and declared that they can shoot to kill just on...
LONDON - A leading Islamic scholar in Britain has asked for the Muslim community to come together to "reclaim Islam from terrorism." He made his call after the terrorist bomb blasts in London Underground trains and on a bus July 7 that killed 55 people and...
