An international campaign seeking a war crimes inquiry into the alleged systematic abuses by Burma's military regime finally has a strong ally in U.S. President Barack Obama.

Southern African leaders used the 30th Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit of government leaders to rally around Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's land seizures, in a move that undermines regionalism, while lamenting their own failure to implement their decisions on regional economic integration.

On the eve of the start of Ramadan last week, Israeli police demolished the Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert. It was the third time within two weeks that the village had been razed.

Serbia is preparing to go before the United Nations next month to renew negotiations over the future of Kosovo, its southern breakaway province that has declared independence and been recognised by a number of countries.

Strident voices are rising against the Indian coalition government's move to identify people by their caste background in the ongoing census.

In the poor, drought-stricken community of Kangcamphalala, AIDS orphan Nomvula Dladla* is in tears. The 17-year-old has been told that her aunt, the only surviving relative she could live with, passed away a few hours ago of an HIV-related illness. And if she had been living anywhere else in the country, it would have made Dladla destitute.

Jake Hess, a U.S. freelance journalist who also wrote for IPS on Kurdish rights within Turkey, is to be deported following a government order.

"If you come to a fork in the road, take it." Sometimes, the nonsensical quote of the legendary New York Yankees baseball catcher Yogi Berra has a real message. It can pointedly be applied to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on peace with the Palestinians.

Soon after she had her second child, Rathna fell into a frenzied state and had to be brought to a hospital here in the southern Indian village of Dharmapuri. After a month-long series of tests, doctors issued their diagnosis: Rathna, they said, was suffering from a psychiatric aberration that seems to occur often among adolescent mothers.

In the last two weeks, Mexico's Supreme Court has taken two fundamental steps in recognising the rights of gays and lesbians. On Monday, it voted to uphold a Mexico City law that allows same-sex couples to adopt.

"The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has proved that music can break down barriers previously considered insurmountable," its Argentine-Israeli conductor, Daniel Barenboim, told IPS on a visit to Ecuador.

For Muhammad el-Baradiyeh, 38, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is always a blessing.

Opportunistic food traders have been blamed for soaring food prices across the Middle East that have added a financial burden on families observing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

"I used to work on the south coast, cutting sugar cane, and I would go all the way to Belize to pick oranges during the harvest. I went through a lot so we could get by," Héctor Pan, a Q'eqchi Indian in Guatemala who has now abandoned farming to become a river rafting guide, told IPS.

Public safety is the top concern of Mexico's civil society organisations, but shortage of money is hampering their work, according to a study released this week in the capital.

By finally announcing the date of the country's first general election in 20 years, Burma's military regime has lived up to a promise it made in its seven-step "roadmap", a blueprint in its desperate quest for political legitimacy.

When Timothy was forced into the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) at age 11, the first thing they did was beat him. Then they took him to a military base where his tasks were to carry other soldiers' bags, wash their clothes, collect firewood for them, and cook their food.

The families of 32 Mapuche prisoners on a hunger strike for a month in different prisons in southern Chile have come to the capital to denounce irregularities in their trials and push for dialogue with the authorities.

Tanya Athikom's search for a permanent job in the information technology sector has so far resulted in a string of disappointments. The Bangkok resident has thus been forced to accept short-term contracts in local and multinational companies here in the Thai capital.

The families of 40 villagers murdered in Peru on Christmas Day in 1984 are camping out next to the eight graves in which their loved ones were buried, to keep watch over the slow, painful process of exhuming the bodies, a task that is being carried out by the public prosecutor's office.