Overseas news archive

25.07.2006 NEW YORK, Jul 24 (OneWorld) - A leading U.S.-based humanitarian group is urging the George W. Bush administration to engage all rebel groups in the Darfur peace process as the U.S. president prepares to talk with the leader of just one particular faction.

24.07.2006 Villagers on the outskirts of Delhi testified before a panel of activists and NGOs on how the government planned to uproot a residential area where the government itself had built schools, hospitals, and roads for the people.

24.07.2006 Two decades after the launch of a nationwide initiative to ensure that government-run schools have more classrooms and teachers, a new survey shows that over 100,000--nearly 10%--of the country’s elementary schools have only one classroom.

24.07.2006 Having lost 40% of their habitat in the past decade to poaching, development, and road-building, wild tigers are in dire need of better protection, according to the most comprehensive study of tiger habitats ever conducted.

24.07.2006 While U.S.-based human rights organizations have condemned the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, mourning the loss of life and calling for U.S. diplomatic intervention, aid groups are offering assistance to civilian victims in Lebanon, Israel, and Gaza.

24.07.2006 Stateless for more than 20 years and the victims of systematic human rights violations in Burma, the Rohingya people have sought refuge in nearby Bangladesh, but that country has become increasingly unwilling to harbor them, fearing an influx for which they are unprepared.

21.07.2006 The international community has spent over $400 million to help the Congolese elect a democratic parliament next week, but without continued support the newly formed body will be ineffectual in its role of fighting corruption and stabilizing the country, the International Crisis Group said Friday.

21.07.2006 SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 20 (OneWorld) - An Afghan government proposal to re-establish the notorious Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has raised concerns among U.S. human rights advocates.

21.07.2006 The groundwater surrounding a major Coca-Cola plant in India is no longer suitable for human consumption, according to a report out Wednesday. The company also announced this week that its sales in India have declined for the eighth straight quarter.

21.07.2006 NEW DELHI, Jul 20 (IPS) - India's fast-growing community of 'bloggers' and Internet users was in for a rude shock when it found favourite sites blocked out in the wake of the serial blasts in crowded trains that killed 200 commuters in the western port city of Mumbai, last week.

21.07.2006 The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to continue to protect non-native English speakers' voting rights and ensure that the federal government monitors districts with histories of discrimination in voting procedures. Having already passed the House, the provision now appears set to become law.

21.07.2006 Over two thousand farmworkers in Hawaii cannot read warning labels--written only in English--on harmful pesticides.

20.07.2006 The announcement of a water and sanitation inquiry by the House of Commons International Development Committee was welcomed by the World Development Movement today.

20.07.2006 A new campaign - irrepressible.info - has been launched today with the aim of reclaiming the web as a force for change in the face of an increasing willingness on the part of technology companies to aid censorship and repression.
+ Child abuse images on the Internet

20.07.2006 In the year it stopped receiving food aid from the World Food Programme (2005), China emerged as the world's third largest food aid donor, according to the International Food Aid Information System.

20.07.2006 Two Bushmen who were arrested and charged with illegally hunting an antelope in a Botswana game reserve were forced to run in front of police vehicles for six hours, according to a group that fights for tribal peoples around the world.

20.07.2006 Treating water in homes is a more effective way of controlling diarrhoea in poor countries than interventions at wells, says a new review.

20.07.2006 President Yahya Jammeh’s "police state" is stepping up the pace of arrests and harassment of journalists in the run-up to The Gambian elections scheduled for September, according to an international media watchdog.

20.07.2006 Typhoon rains, landslides and flash floods have left more than 9,000 families homeless in North Korea.

20.07.2006 A claim by a UN rights representative that a new Thai decree makes impunity for soldiers and police officers "look like official policy" should be discussed and acted on, says a leading Asian rights group. It also said that if the government failed to pay attention to the criticism, it risked rejection of its candidate for the post of UN secretary-general.