Overseas news archive

14.08.2006 Hospitals in the West Bank are accepting any donations they can get, but cancer patients have already died for lack of chemotherapy medicines, dialysis treatments have been cut back, and many supplies have run out or are about to, doctors there say.

11.08.2006 NEW YORK, Aug 11 (OneWorld) - The world's wealthiest nations have come under scathing criticism for their inaction after billionaire Bill Gates made a new pledge this week to spend $500 million on the global fight against HIV and AIDS.

11.08.2006 SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 11 (OneWorld) - The loss of 400,000 barrels of oil a day caused by the closure of BP's Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska could be offset if all the cars and trucks in the United States got just one extra mile per gallon of fuel efficiency, a prominent non-profit grouping of scientists said this week.

11.08.2006 Increased killings of aid workers worldwide and lack of humanitarian access to those people most in need, especially in conflict areas like Lebanon, Darfur, and Sri Lanka, have made the past month one of the “worst ever" in humanitarian terms, Jan Egeland said Thursday.

11.08.2006 "Civilians were supposed to be spared and in this conflict they are not," charged UN relief chief Jan Egeland Thursday, saying that Hezbollah and the Israelis "could give us access in a heartbeat and then we could help 120,000 people in southern Lebanon."

11.08.2006 Media watchdogs in South Africa are demanding changes to proposed government legislation that could force editors to submit entire newspapers to regulators before publication.

11.08.2006 Afghan President Hamid Karzai's cabinet has approved a proposal to resurrect a notorious ministry set up under the Taliban that ruthlessly implemented a string of arbitrary laws in the name of regulating "virtue and vice."

11.08.2006 "Civilians were supposed to be spared and in this conflict they are not," charged UN relief chief Jan Egeland Thursday, saying that Hezbollah and the Israelis "could give us access in a heartbeat and then we could help 120,000 people in southern Lebanon."

10.08.2006 A Nairobi meeting between Western and African media managers has put differences on display: Senior African journalists argued that the West presents their continent in far more negative tones than it deserves, while Western journalists claimed to be merely reporting the "harsh realities."

10.08.2006 The south Indian state of Kerala has banned the production and sale of Coke and Pepsi after revelations that the soft drinks in India contain an average of 24 times the levels of pesticides allowable by European Union standards.

09.08.2006 Israeli bombing has caused a major environmental disaster along much of the Lebanese coastline, writes Kassem El-Saddik. Clean-up operations cannot start without a ceasefire.

09.08.2006 In the first week since election day, which was generally thought to be transparent and free from intimidation, international observers have witnessed the dumping of large numbers of ballot papers outside counting offices.

09.08.2006 Iran has threatened to prosecute the country's most prominent human rights group as an illegal organization in what observers say is just the latest attempt to shut down civil activists.

09.08.2006 UNITED NATIONS, Aug 8 (OneWorld) - A prominent international humanitarian organization is calling for the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate the killings of a group of aid workers in Sri Lanka.

09.08.2006 The Bush administration is failing to respond to "alarming evidence" that oceans are in a crisis, ocean experts told a U.S. Senate panel last week.

08.08.2006 The first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 61 years ago Sunday. To commemorate, demonstrations, vigils, rallies, and more are being held around the world to protest nuclear weapons proliferation. The protests this year are focusing on Bechtel Corporation, one of the world's leading nuclear weapons contractors.

08.08.2006 SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 7 (OneWorld) - Protesters took to the streets around the world this weekend to oppose Israel's attacks on Lebanon and call for an immediate ceasefire. Demonstrations took place in London, Brussels, Cape Town, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Sarajevo, and across Indonesia.

08.08.2006 The world's second largest tropical rainforest, gradually diminishing due to unregulated and often illegal extractive activities, is in need of preservation. From villages to presidential offices, efforts are being made to ensure a hopeful future for the Congo River Basin.

08.08.2006 A new report is calling for fresh thinking in the fight against AIDS--specifically, the use of a "hidden army" of millions of church volunteers who are already effective in aiding orphans, the sick, and the elderly.

08.08.2006 The Pakistani parliament is expected to approve a bill that would reverse strict Islamic-based laws that make it nearly impossible to prove a woman has been raped. The bill is being lauded by women's rights groups.