Overseas news archive

31.10.2005 In anticipation of renewed fighting with rebel forces, the Ivorian government is recruiting Liberian children alongside hundreds of other former combatants in Liberia’s civil war, said leading human rights group.

28.10.2005 The Philippines government is being urged to stop the murders of church people, human rights advocates, journalists, trade unionists and political activists - said to total 100 this year alone.

28.10.2005 The murder of a relief worker in Afghanistan less than a week after the killing of five local aid workers threatens to further undermine the country's stability and its fragile recovery process, says a leading development charity.

28.10.2005 The US House of Representatives has slipped an amendment into the Patriot Act Reauthorization Act that would dramatically skew federal death penalty cases in favor of the prosecution.

28.10.2005 Correspondents report on how governments in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America plan to fight a possible outbreak of "bird flu" in the face of poor public health infrastructure.

28.10.2005 In a radio and TV appeal for help, Malawi’s President Binguwa Mutharika said the country was facing a national disaster from the worsening food crisis.

* OneWorld Guide to Malawi

28.10.2005 Some of the world's richest nations have come under fire from a leading corruption watchdog group for failing to take action against the companies that illegally profited from a United Nations-sponsored humanitarian programme in Iraq.

27.10.2005 Harriet Miers, who once said it was "cool" to ride with George Bush in a plane and who the President described as "a pit bull in size-six shoes", has withdrawn from her nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the US Supreme Court.

27.10.2005 Three activists have won the prestigious Human Rights Defender Award: Omid Memarian, a journalist and web-blogger from Iran, Salih Mahmoud Osman, lawyer and human rights activist from Darfur, and Beatrice Were, an advocate for the rights of women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Uganda.
* The "ladies in white", wives and mothers of imprisoned dissidents in Cuba, this week received the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought, along with Nigerian lawyer Hauwa Ibrahim and Reporters Without Borders.

27.10.2005 It's payback time for Pakistan, in return for the country's generosity in hosting more than six million Afghan refugees for over 25 years, the UN refugee organisation said, as the Red Cross and Red Crescent warned that thousands of earthquake survivors may die unless they get help through the winter and the United Nations raised its appeal for donations to almost US$550 million.
Meanwhile, with the UN appeal seriously underfunded, Oxfam named rich countries that have given nothing - Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Portugal and Spain - and governments that have given less than one-fifth of their fair share: Italy, Japan, Germany and the US.

27.10.2005 It is a disgrace that fewer than 5 per cent of HIV-positive children receive treatment and that millions of children who have lost parents to the disease go without support, says a new global campaign.

27.10.2005 Chinese and US researchers say illegal blood donation is to blame for high levels of hepatitis C infection in rural China.

27.10.2005 Heavy-handed tactics by the Uganda army against northern rebels are condemned by a leading development charity, which seeks international pressure on the government to protect civilians and aid convoys.

26.10.2005 Vietnam's attempts to enter the World Trade Organisation have been blocked by what the country's negotiators say are unacceptable new demands by Washington that the socialist country change the way its economy works, more than it already has.

26.10.2005 Scarce tents and other relief supplies are being put in storage by officials working under military supervision in Muzaffarabad city, Pakistan, rather than handed out to needy, homeless people, said leading human rights group.

26.10.2005 African governments and donors have launched an ambitious plan to fight desertification, which causes chronic food shortages and threatens to drive millions from their homes in coming decades.

25.10.2005 At least one million people were marooned on Monday by flooding in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal after five days of torrential rains left 14 dead, officials said.

25.10.2005 Campaigners against gun violence in Brazil and around the world expressed disappointment after 64% voted ‘no’ to banning the sale of guns and ammunition.

24.10.2005 A leading bird conservation agency warned that culling wild birds in an attempt to control the spread of bird flu virus would be entirely counter-productive.

21.10.2005 The food shortage in Malawi has worsened, with an estimated 4.6 million people in need of emergency food support and the situation expected to become more acute from December to March.