HUMAN RIGHTS

Chinese authorities are stepping up their hunt for illegal firearms as part of a broader effort to combat organized crime and illicit trade.

Not every Haitian immigrant to the United States completes the dangerous journey to get there, but those who do can have a surprising effect on the quality of life upon the island of their birth.

Sectarian violence has flared in western Myanmar (formerly Burma) between Muslims and Buddhists, following the brutal rape and murder of a young woman last month.

Indian border officers have killed almost 1,000 people at the Bangladesh-West Bengal border over the past decade (including both Bangladeshi and Indian nationals).

Opposition groups in Russia published their Manifesto of Free Russia, which demands an end to Putin's 12-year rule.

Muslims, who form a 4 percent minority in Myanmar as a whole, are concentrated in Rakhine and are part of a community called the Rohingya.

A mortar round hit an anti-regime protest in a city in eastern Syria Tuesday, killing at least 10 people, a human rights watchdog group reported.

Children in Syria were tortured, executed and used as human shields by the forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad's regime during military raids against rebels, a U.N. report released Monday said.

The U.S. expressed fears Monday that the Syrian government may be organizing another massacre in the town of Haffa in coastal Latakia province, where UN military observers have been denied access.

The world's biggest Muslim country may be headed toward more radicalism and less moderation after banning the American singer for performing in bra and panties.

Pro-regime forces were held responsible once again for killing dozens of civilians, including women and children, across Syria in an attack Saturday, a human rights watchdog group reported.

Israel received about 4,600 asylum applications from Africans last year, according to the U.S. State Department. About 3,700 were rejected, while only one was approved. The others are pending.

A new documentary about Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has sparked controversy among Chileans who have haunting memories of the military regime years when many people, targeted as political dissidents, were imprisoned, tortured, executed or disappeared.

Russia and China remain opposed to any external intervention efforts int Syria by foreign countries, even as UN observers come under fire during their investigations of a civilian massacre.

Prime Minister David Cameron endorsed the law, calling forced marriage completely wrong and tantamount to ?slavery.?

Pillay says such measures raise serious legal issues.

A Wednesday report revealed that the conflict in the Ivory Coast involves mercenaries from neighboring Liberia. The militants have abducted children, murdered civilians and raided communities in Ivorian villages.

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng's brother has said that local authorities destroyed evidence of abuse in his village, coinciding with reports that government surveillance, which turned the village into a prison to keep the activist under house arrest for two years, has ended.

U.S. military strategy of continued drone strikes to fight the insurgents in Pakistan and Afghanistan once again stood accused of violating international law, this time by the U.N.'s human rights chief, Navi Pillay, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Malawians have faced severe shortages and other economic problems since the IMF drastically reduced lending facilities last year.

Germany, Holland and Austria have also threatened a similar boycott.