Overseas news archive

22.06.2006 A prominent environmental group has made a three-year licensing partnership with a rechargeable battery company that covers 40 countries.

21.06.2006 Civil society organisations need to rethink the ways in which they attempt to influence government policy processes, according to a new report published by the Overseas Development Institute today.

21.06.2006 UN organisations and civil society groups have launched a partnership to tackle sexual violence in conflict and crisis situations around the world.

21.06.2006 Save the Children has received a $500,000 grant from the Gates Foundation to support emergency relief efforts in Java in the wake of the May earthquake.

21.06.2006 China has opened a new centre to assess its potential to generate wind and solar energy.

21.06.2006 African countries should demystify sex in order to effectively deal with abuses, human reproductive experts told a pan-African conference on sexual health and rights.

21.06.2006 The Afghan government is accused of "absolutely outrageous" behaviour for trying to impose censorship and self-censorship in media coverage of the security situation and the presence of foreign troops.

21.06.2006 The "alarming" humanitarian situation in various parts of Iraq has been underlined by the Red Cross and Red Crescent, which cites the example of a province in which food and medical supplies are running low, public services have almost ground to a halt and residents are reportedly trying to flee the area.
* OneWorld news by email

21.06.2006 After claims of victory from both sides at this week's international meeting on whaling and despite the global whaling moratorium, more whales than ever are being caught and killed on the open seas each year, a leading environmental organisation has warned.
+ Greenpeace protest disrupted in St Kitts

21.06.2006 Advocates in Nigeria and the US have criticised a major new report from the State Department in Washington for ignoring the trafficking of Nigerian women into the US, and warned that the omission could undermine efforts to draw the huge Nigerian diaspora into the fight against household slavery in the US.

21.06.2006 The winners of five UNESCO prizes for literacy projects - in Cuba, India, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey - were announced by the UN body yesterday.

20.06.2006 A day after UN warnings of deteriorating access to humanitarian aid for over 2 million people in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan, President Omar al-Bashir reportedly said today that Sudan rejects 'colonial' troops.
+ Darfur rally today
+ Darfur’s fragile peace agreement

20.06.2006 The British police risk damaging their credibility and community relations when they make mistakes in their use of anti-terror laws or use them for non-terrorism purposes, the government's terror law watchdog warned yesterday.
* Customs officers 'no deterrent to terrorism'
* Executive jets seen to pose terror risk

20.06.2006 Following a legal ruling that three British men and a Canadian tortured in Saudi Arabia cannot sue the men responsible for their ordeal, the British government has been accused of ignoring the suffering of its own citizens while backing the servants of a state that routinely uses torture.

20.06.2006 Scientists have genetically modified wheat and barley so the seeds still contain an important nutritional enzyme after cooking.

20.06.2006 A London woman has been jailed after she infected one of her sexual partners with HIV.

20.06.2006 The World Council of Churches' condemnation of Terminator technology and its call for action by churches and people of other faiths "who care for small-scale farmers and God's creation" has been backed by the leading Catholic development organisation.

20.06.2006 A meeting of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is expected to agree today to add the "red crystal" to its emblem.

20.06.2006 A husband and wife who were both journalists were gunned down near their home on the Philippines island of Mindanao yesterday, confirming the country's reputation as one of the most dangerous in the world for journalists.

20.06.2006 After nearly two decades of conflict between the government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, about 90-95 per cent of the population in northern Uganda now live in overcrowded camps for displaced people, according to an international medical group.