WHO : US-sponsored risky research may affect global flu virus framework (PRIV)
(Edward Hammond, Austin)
The fallout from United States-sponsored experiments with pandemic influenza strains has raised strong biosafety concerns and raised dilemmas for implementing the World Health Organization's Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Framework.

Development : France steps forward with Robin Hood tax (PRIV)
(IPS, Paris)
The decision by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to push ahead with a financial transactions tax (FTT) may be a political ploy ahead of elections, but it has the approval of many non-governmental organisations, even as support lags elsewhere.

Europe : Berlin urged to end austerity measures (PRIV)
(IPS, Berlin)
Bolstered by Germany's strong economy, Berlin has become the unofficial capital of the battered European monetary union.

Mideast : Egypt follows Israel, eyeing US aid without pre-conditions (PRIV)
(IPS, New York)
The United States, the largest provider of military aid to Israel, has rarely, if ever, succeeded in using its leverage to get the Jewish state to abandon its continued repression of Palestinians or halt illegal settlements in occupied territories.

Mexico : Cross-border child custody, a legal tangle (PRIV)
(IPS, Mexico City)
Mexican or foreign-born children being held by one of their parents in this or another country are caught up in a legal tangle marred by red tape and the arbitrary powers of judges, according to experts.

Afghanistan : Killing heroin with saffron (PRIV)
(IPS, Srinagar)
Weaning Afghanistan's poppy farmers away from growing the raw material for the bulk of the world's illicit heroin has never been easy, but Kashmir's saffron cultivators may have the answer.