Reports

With Egypt’s parliamentary elections drawing closer, the Hosni Mubarak government has begun cracking down on the media. The moves include clamping down on broadcasts of live shows and the manipulated sacking of a prominent newspaper editor. Egypt’s High Committee for Elections has not yet announced an exact date, but the elections are expected to be held in November. Mubarak, 82, has not yet announced his intention to contest, but speculation is rife that he would prop up his son Gamal. The...

Germany is increasingly turning xenophobic. One in three Germans believe that the country has too many foreigners, and over one in ten want a Führer at the helm of affairs, a survey released by a left-wing Berlin think-tank said Wednesday. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, affiliated to the Social Democratic Party (SPD), published the study titled Die Mitte in der Krise - Rechtsextreme Einstellungen in Deutschland 2010, or “The mainstream in the crisis – Right-wing extremist attitudes in Germany,”...

Survival International has named its ‘Top 5 Hall of Shame’ – the key companies violating tribal peoples’ rights worldwide. But Vedanta Resources has missed out by a whisker – more by default, than by design. After the Indian government scrapped its mining project in the Niyamgiri Hills of Orissa, it is not getting the chance to trample on tribal peoples. But there are others who continue to do so with impunity around the world. Survival International has named them in its Top 5 Hall of Shame...

Nordic countries continue to show the world how to bridge inequality between men and women. Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden are the top four, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2010. The index’s scores can be interpreted as the percentage of the gap that has been closed between women and men. The 2010 report features a total of 134 countries, representing over 93% of the world’s population. Others in the Top 10 are New Zealand (5), Ireland (6), Denmark (7)...

French authorities have arrested in Paris the alleged leader of a Rwandan rebel group accused of mass rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Monday. Callixte Mbarushimana, described as a leader of the rebel group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda, FDLR), was held after a sealed warrant was issued for his arrest on allegations the rebel group was involved in hundreds of rapes in DRC's...

Here comes another report that shames India. The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2010 says India’s position is abysmal. Out of 134 countries surveyed, India is among the lowest ranked countries at the 112th position, with a score of 0.6155. The index ranks 134 economies according to the size of the gaps between men and women. India (112) occupies one of the last places in the regional rankings. India and Pakistan perform above average on the political empowerment of women...

It is not a very comforting to be told time and again how much of a hungry nation we are. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) does just that. Published by the International Food Policy Research Institute, it goes one up on The State of Food Insecurity in the World report released by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) by putting things in perspective. India stands 67th among 84 developing countries in this index – the lower rung you are on the ladder, the more hungry you...

Matt Damon is out of the next Bourne film. And so is ― believe it ― Jason Bourne himself. Director-screenwriter Tony Gilroy has said Damon’s character, Jason Bourne, will not feature in The Bourne Legacy, which is due to be released in 2012. Gilroy told Hollywood Elsewhere: "This is not a reboot or a recast or a prequel. No one's replacing Matt Damon. There will be a whole new hero, a whole new chapter … this is a stand-alone project. Jason Bourne will not be in this film, but he's very much...

A new carnivore species has been discovered in the marshes of the Lac Alaotra wetlands in central eastern Madagascar. The small, cat-sized, speckled brown mammal has been named Durrell’s vontsira (Salanoia durrelli) by scientists. The discovery, announced in the latest issue of the taxonomic journal Systematics and Biodiversity, was made by researchers from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, the Natural History Museum, London, Nature Heritage, Jersey, and Conservation International. The...

The son of a Baloch nationalist leader who was killed during Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf’s rule has offered a bounty of Rs 1 billion and 100 acres of land to any person who beheads the former dictator. The offer was made by Talal Akbar Bugti, the son of late leader Nawab Akbar Bugti and chief of the Jamhoori Watan Party, in the North West Frontier Province town of Quetta on Saturday. Nawab Bugti was killed in a cave, about 150 miles east of Quetta in August 2006. Musharraf, on the...