Ashish Kumar Sen

Economic grievances, including high levels of unemployment and rampant corruption, have been a key driver of protests erupting across the Arab world in recent weeks.

Pakistan has doubled the size of its nuclear stockpile over the past several years, edging past India and now has more than 100 deployed weapons, according to a Washington Post report.

A leaderless uprising in Egypt rallied Sunday around Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, with the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition group, saying it will support him in negotiations with President Hosni Mubarak‘s regime.

Protests for democratic reforms spread Thursday from Tunisia and Egypt to Yemen, where thousands of people gathered in the capital, Sanaa, to demand that the impoverished country’s longtime president step down.

The Obama administration on Wednesday voiced its support for the Egyptian people’s rights to freedom of expression and assembly, as a second day of protests in Cairo saw police using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators.

Autocratic regimes in the Arab world are trying to buy the support of their citizens, driven by fear that ripples from the political upheaval in Tunisia could also sweep them from power.

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was beheaded by Al-Qaida No. 3 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and not the four men convicted by a Pakistani court in his murder, according to a new report.

The Obama administration on Thursday blacklisted a senior leader of Pakistan-based militant group that has used suicide attacks to kill scores of people in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including seven Americans.

Pakistani authorities "knowingly used perjured testimony" and failed to pursue other leads in convicting four men of the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, according to a report based on a 3 1/2-year probe of the case.

The Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday acknowledged that “a lot still needs to be done in China, in terms of human rights.” Hu was speaking at the White House following a meeting with US President Barack Obama.

The wife of Gao Zhisheng, a Chinese human rights lawyer who revealed details of the torture he was subjected to while in detention in China, says she has not heard from her husband since he went missing again in April of last year and fears for his life.

Officials in Sudan said Wednesday that early results for a referendum on splitting the country in two show that more than 98 percent of voters in and near the south's capital of Juba voted for independence from the north.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is reportedly on a personal visit to the U.S., prompting calls from an international human rights group that he be investigated for his alleged role in torture and war crimes.

The wife of Gao Zhisheng, a Chinese human rights lawyer who revealed details of the torture he endured in detention in China, says she has not heard from her husband since he went missing again last April and fears for his life.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog has asked Myanmar's reclusive military junta to allow the agency's inspectors to visit amid growing concern that the Southeast Asian nation's rulers may be trying to build a nuclear weapon.

An international human rights group says China has allowed civil rights to be abused despite the communist government's plan to curb such abuses over the past two years.

The Obama administration is weighing options to give an early reward to Sudan's government if a referendum that would allow the southern part of the country to secede takes place without a hitch.

Fallout from an upcoming referendum on south Sudan's independence poses risks for the political stability of the northern part of the country, the security of the southern part and the economies of the northeast African region.

The governor of Pakistan's richest and most populous province, Punjab, was assassinated in Islamabad on Tuesday by one of his bodyguards, who said he was angered by the governor's opposition to the country's blasphemy laws.

Afghan efforts to eradicate opium-yielding poppy crops that fuel the Taliban-led insurgency have stalled as a result of a lack of incentives and adequate security for farmers who may be inclined to cut ties with the Taliban, according to Afghan and Western officials.