The Philippines and the Muslim group hope to sign a deal by April next year over Muslim homeland, officials from both sides said on Wednesday. 　　Both parties are pushing to finalize the deal, which involves bringing back international monitors to the region, before Philippine President Gloria Arroyo's term ends in... More

　　On the night that Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, 21-year-old Mohammed el Gharani was sitting in a segregation cell in Guantanamo Bay's high security Echo Block. 　　He remembers the excitement among his fellow prisoners at the prospect of an Obama presidency. "Everyone was very hopeful; people were saying... More

　　Governments around the world, including those of Arab and European states, have colluded in the secret detention of 'terrorism suspects', UN investigators have reported. 　　An extensive report, released on Wednesday, paints a disturbing picture of a systematic secret detention program involving many countries. 　　Officials found that secret detention "may even... More

　　On a ridge of the rugged brown mountains that encircle Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, Qatari investors are building a little slice of the Gulf. 　　"This project will be an icon of quality," promised Hassan Fadala, deputy CEO of operations at Qatari Diar, the real estate investment company pumping $600mn... More

　　Allegations that the Israeli secret service, Mossad, was behind the killing of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai are gaining strength. 　　The accusation originated with Hamas after the 49-year-old was found dead in a hotel in Dubai last month. 　　Israel, unsurprisingly, has neither confirmed nor denied that Mossad operatives carried... More

　　Scientists in Africa have begun trials of a malaria vaccine. 　　Developed through two decades of research, the Mosquirix vaccine - also known as RDS,S - is being tested in Africa's biggest ever clinical trial, spanning seven nations, and involving some 16,000 children. 　　More than 5,000 children have already undergone preliminary... More

　　"This was a big one. A really big one,'' said Dr. Tim Dixon, geophysics professor at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami, speaking of the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck near Chile Saturday morning. 　　How thunderous is 8.8 quake on the Richter scale? The energy released... More

　　Human rights group Amnesty International has called on China to publicly state how many people it puts to death each year. 　　In its annual report on the use of the used of the death penalty worldwide, published on Tuesday, Amnesty said the number of people executed by Beijing last year... More

　　The position of the Palestinian Authority (PA) mission in Geneva regarding the findings of the UN's Goldstone report on crimes during Israel's war on Gaza earlier this year was rather surprising - even by the norms put in place when it was established in Ramallah following the 1993 Oslo Accords.... More

　　How the mighty have fallen. Just a few years ago, an overconfident Bush administration expected to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, pacify the country, install a compliant client government, privatize the economy, and establish Iraq as the political and military headquarters for a dominating U.S. presence in the Middle East.... More

　　US President Barack Obama does have a foreign policy. It's called war. 　　The President has not defined any real difference between his hawkish approach to international issues and that of his predecessor, former US President George W. Bush. 　　Where's the change we can believe in? 　　Bush left a legacy of... More

　　For more than half a century, the Mossad has been blamed for numerous killings around the world, and is often at the centre of conspiracy theories, including those surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 1998 Lockerbie bombing and the 911 attacks in the US. 　　While some of its... More

　　Personal information concerning the private lives of almost 1,000 British Muslim university students is to be shared with US intelligence agencies in the wake of the Detroit bomb scare. 　　The disclosure has outraged Muslim groups and students who are not involved in ‘extremism’ but have been targeted by police and... More

　　The postponement of the UN Human Rights Council vote on the findings of Richard Goldstone's report into Israel's recent 22-day war on Gaza has raised many questions. 　　Sahar Francis, a Palestinian Israeli and a human rights lawyer who testified before the UN fact finding mission led by Goldstone, spoke to... More

　　A new human-rights report claims that Chinese citizens are kidnapped and held in informal detention centers, known locally as "black jails", to prevent them from bringing complaints to the central government. 　　The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the practice of locking up disgruntled petitioners has evolved into a... More

　　The failed attempt by the New Life Children's Refuge to take 33 Haitian children into the Dominican Republic has shed light on the activities of groups that disregard the rules of international 'adoption'. 　　Even before the earthquake, Haiti was known as a nation of orphans. Now there are countless more.... More

　　Alberto Athie, a former Mexican priest, took the difficult decision to leave the Roman Catholic Church following his investigations into a high-profile pedophile priest. 　　He holds up the letter he wrote 13 years ago to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. It details senior Mexican priest Marcial Maciel's sexual... More

　　On February 12 of this year, U.S. forces entered a village in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan and, after surrounding a home where a celebration of a new birth was taking place, shot dead two male civilians (government officials) who exited the house in order to inquire why they had... More

　　Militia brigades abducting children and forcing them to become soldiers, porters and sex slaves is a huge problem in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 　　In the last few months, fighting between the DRC army and Rwandan Hutu rebels and other militias has intensified. 　　Aid agencies describe the situation as catastrophic,... More

　　The recent arrest warrant issued in London for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is more than justified. 　　This woman, along with two other Israeli leaders, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, stood at the helm of the Israeli government that ordered, supervised and charted the genocidal onslaught against the Gaza... More