Overseas news archive

20.04.2006 The US should release Sudanese cameraman Sami Al-Haj of the Al-Jazeera TV station, detained without charge at Guantanamo Bay since June 2002, a leading media watchdog said yesterday.

20.04.2006 Uganda has asked the UN Security Council to support strong measures to hunt down, disarm and prosecute the the Lord's Resistance Army, which has waged a 20-year campaign of terror.

20.04.2006 Having uncovered substandard work in its post-tsunami building programme in Indonesia, Save the Children says it has temporarily suspended new work, and is holding contractors to account for the quality of construction.

20.04.2006 Oxfam has launched the biggest food crisis appeal in its 60-year history, asking the British public to give £20 million to fund its work in East Africa, where 11 million people are in urgent need of assistance.
* Key NGOs cautiously optimistic on CERF

20.04.2006 As the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident approaches, the UN Children's Fund says that the number of children who developed thyroid cancer could have been significantly lower if they had been consuming iodised salt in their daily diet at the time of the accident.

19.04.2006 India has been urged to drop "unimaginable" charges against three Greenpeace activists who have been trying to prevent the killing of endangered and protected Olive Ridley turtles.

19.04.2006 "Even the sound of a car made people run into the bush. This pervasive fear amongst the population is what struck me the most," says Simon Collins, a doctor working in the Central African Republic.

19.04.2006 After a chase of over 1,000 miles, a six-day occupation and hours of diplomatic negotiations, Spain has finally agreed to declare the cargo from the "Binar 4'" - 200 tonnes of fish from West Africa - illegal. Guinean officials also announced they would be fining the owners and operators of the vessel.

19.04.2006 Campaigners say they are trying to ensure that the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund "will result in real money to fight poverty and not aid increases based on clever accounting, politics and naked self interest.”

19.04.2006 The World Trade Organisation has been slammed by 125 civil society groups from 40 countries for its secretive, selective approach to international negotiations and urged to cancel a forthcoming "mini-ministerial" meeting in Geneva.

19.04.2006 The total of refugees worldwide - 9.2 million - is the lowest for 25 years, but as internal strife replaces cross-border conflict the number of internally displaced people has risen to an estimated 25 million, says a new report by the UN refugee agency.

18.04.2006 Nepal’s King Gyanendra and his senior officials and top military officers should be refused entry to other countries and have any personal assets outside the country frozen, three major rights' groups said today.

18.04.2006 British consumers believe that McDonald's is the least ethical of high-profile corporations, according to a new survey. Its corporate colleagues iin the top ten are Nike, Shell, Adidas, Barclays Bank, Coca-Cola, BP, Camelot, American Express and Nestle.

18.04.2006 Native peoples are still trying to vote in Alaska because the US state has not fully complied with provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, charges a new report.

18.04.2006 Burma has the worst internal displacement crisis in Asia, a leading international refugee group said as it urged the UN Security Council to seek a resolution to the country's political crisis.

18.04.2006 Activists and survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Union Carbide chemical disaster called off a week-long hunger strike because they said Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had promised to meet four of their six demands, including a clean-up of the accident site.

18.04.2006 More than 250,000 additional cancers will be caused by the Chernobyl nuclear accident, of which nearly 100,000 will be fatal, according to a report that accuses previous studies - including one by the the International Atomic Energy Authority - of a "shocking" underestimate of the casualties.
* Fallout - the human cost of nuclear catastrophe, post-Chernobyl photographs, see OneWorld UK Events

18.04.2006 Concern is growing over disappearances of political and human rights activists in southern Pakistan, allegedly with the involvement of security personnel.

18.04.2006 Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf issues a report on her administration's "First 150 Days Action Plan" - and today launches a national education policy for girls.

18.04.2006 Afghan women and girls continue to face extreme obstacles and discrimination as they seek to exercise their rights, according to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.
* Afghanistan: UN helps reintegrate ex-combatant families through teacher-training