World

Socialist Ségolène Royale is not the only obstacle between Nicolas Sarkozy and the French Presidency. Jacques Chirac wants to derail his campaign too, says Patrice de Beer

In Ethiopia, two-thirds of private newspapers were closed in the last year and 14 journalists are currently on trial, potentially facing the death penalty for ‘outrages against the constitution'. Max McGuinness reports.

In a country, Armenia, where almost two thirds of the population earn an annual income of around €1,000, the Defence Minister is worth more than $1 billion, the Transport and Communications Minister Andranik Manukyan earns over €2 million a year and the President, Robert Kocharyan, and Prime Minister, Andranik Margaryan, are also among the country's top ten richest people.

The People's Democratic Party of Nigeria, the country's governing party, has selected Umaru Yar'Adua (55) a governor of a northern province and a Muslim, to be its candidate in next year's presidential election.

International Human Rights Day was on 10 December, but it would be a lie to say we celebrated it. Right now, in Darfur,  Amnesty International is receiving reports of villages where  the men have been killed and young girls have been raped by the Janjaweed militia and then abandoned by their own communities. In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, despair about the future is fuelling violence  while the dire economic situation is trapping an entire population in deep poverty. Similar  comments could be made about Iraq, Chechnya and so many other situations.

By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent UK

While the Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence. By Antonia Juhasz (LA Times)

(AGI) - Caltanissetta - A very wide-ranging anti-mafia operation against the clans of Gela (Caltanissetta) is underway in the area itself as well as in various other Italian provinces, with the carrying out of 88 arrest warrants.

Stephen Leahy (Inter Press Service)

BROOKLIN, Canada, - Incredible new forms of life have been discovered around super-hot 400 degree C seafloor vents, as well as under 700 metres of Antarctic ice, by the 20th scientific expedition of the Census of Marine Life of 2006 now underway.