Overseas news archive

31.08.2005 Uzbekmilitary personnel are set to receive a substantial pay rise starting 1 September as President Islam Karimov tries to shore up his government’s chief pillar of support in advance of what an opposition activist describes as the "upcoming storm."

31.08.2005 Learn lessons from the recent series of European floods, the European Commission is told as it prepares a new directive on flood risk management.

31.08.2005 China's plans to attract "overseas Chinese" researchers to help drive its scientific progress are being undermined by the "irresponsibility" of those being hired, a senior US-based Chinese mathematician has warned.

31.08.2005 The US and Non-Aligned Movement could end the chance for UN reform by demanding sweeping last-minute changes, warns a leading development group.

31.08.2005 Indonesia has launched its largest-ever immunization campaign to combat a polio epidemic that threatens a swathe of countries across Asia.

30.08.2005 The California Strawberry Commission is urged to hire a president committed to protecting children’s health by stopping the use of methyl bromide, a potent ozone layer-destroying pesticide.

30.08.2005 Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has described as "garbage" a European Union election report that raised doubts over the fairness of the country's recent general election.

30.08.2005 A senior United Nations official has accused US President George Bush of "doing damage to Africa" by cutting funding for condoms, a move which may jeopardise the successful fight against HIV and Aids in Uganda.

30.08.2005 The Botswana government's attorney has dismissed foreign financial support for the Bushmen - with whom the administration is locked in a land dispute - as "Europeans telling us what to do and what not to do...but we really don't care, and we resent their involvement in our affairs."

30.08.2005 A 50 per cent drop in deforestation in the Amazon region in the last 11 months is reported by the Brazilian Environment Ministry.

29.08.2005 The US military says it has released nearly 1,000 prisoners from Abu Ghraib jail in response to a request by Iraqi authorities.

26.08.2005 As Afghanistan’s parliamentary election campaign enters its final weeks, the UN Children's Fund launches an awareness campaign that spotlights children and their rights.

26.08.2005 Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has called for an investigation after the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria suspended all its grants to Uganda due to "evidence of serious mismanagement" of funds.

26.08.2005 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has vowed to keep expanding Israeli settlements on Palestinian land barely days after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four smaller West Bank settlements.

25.08.2005 The continent is suffering from a water shortage despite being home to two of the world’s longest rivers.

24.08.2005 Thousands of children born to HIV-positive mothers are being abandoned, new data shows, and the women themselves face widespread discrimination, even from doctors.

24.08.2005 A recently published short story about polygamy has triggered debate in Chechnya over whether the custom could resolve problems stemming from erosion of family structures in the war-torn region.

22.08.2005 The anti-poverty demands of developing countries have been ignored or watered down in the draft declaration of the forthcoming UN Millennium Development Goals summit, according to a leading anti-poverty lobby group.

22.08.2005 Asian countries are increasingly turning to nuclear power, accounting for 16 of the 25 nuclear plants currently under construction worldwide.

22.08.2005 Pirates off the Somali coast are still holding a ship chartered by the UN World Food Programme, 10 crew, and 850 tons of rice for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami, despite an agreement for their release.