Pakistani forces have launched a military operation against Taliban militants near the northwestern city of Peshawar. The offensive in the Khyber tribal region marks the first major military action which Pakistan's newly elected government has taken against the Taliban on

Thirty years ago, a 47-year-old Crimean Tatar named Musa Mamut poured gasoline over himself and set himself alight. He lived for five days, eventually dying from his burns on June 28, 1978. Before dying, he is reported to have said,

The government of Pakistan's restive North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has recently appointed veteran Pashtun politician and human rights activist Afrasiab Khattak as its peace envoy. In his new job, Khattak will be dealing with dangerous and complicated security issues

As hard as it may be to believe, there was a time when many regarded Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu as an open-minded Marxist, a nationalist communist, even a proponent of socialism with a human face. Ceausescu himself cultivated this image

Russian and European Union officials meeting in the Siberian oil townof Khanty-Mansiisk have launched negotiations on a new strategicpartnership pact, in an apparent step toward more constructiverelations between Moscow and Brussels following years of concern overdeteriorating ties.

RFE/RL has learned that Sazak Durdymuradov, a contributor to its Turkmen Service, is being held at an infamous psychiatric clinic in eastern Turkmenistan, one week after his arrest and reported beating and torture by police.

There is one new member of the European Union that has been workinghard to undermine the rule of law and its own judiciary. Since thatcountry joined the union at the beginning of last year, it hasundertaken the systematic retraction of

On June 24 in Turkmenistan's capital, Ashgabat, European Union officials opened what is expected to be a series of discussions on human rights in the country. However, the talks got under way just days after Sazak Durdymuradov, a frequent contributor

Officially, it's Media Day in Uzbekistan today, although the runningjoke among journalists is that the government is actually celebratingVictory Day over the country's free and independent media.

WASHINGTON -- North Korea has delivered a long-delayed accounting of its nuclear activities.

The Anglican church communion, numbering some 77 million peopleworldwide, is facing the possibility of a complete fracture over thequestion of gay clergy.

Over the past 10 days, representatives of ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan have issued two separate public statements affirming their fear of assimilation and soliciting international support. Azerbaijani commentators have dismissed those appeals as unfounded and orchestrated by Moscow.

On June 16, the pro-government factions within the Armenian National Assembly voted unanimously in favor of setting up an ad hoc commission to investigate the March 1-2 clashes in Yerevan between supporters of defeated presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrossian and security

The deputy chief of the U.S. mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Kyle Scott, has told RFE/RL's Kazakh Service after his arrival in Kazakhstan that there are lingering concerns over that country's implementation of democratic

Would you like to live permanently in another country other than your own? If you're an average citizen of the world, the chances are better than one in four that the answer is yes.

The Council of Europe this week puzzled many of its newer member states.

Among other proposed amendments to the annual budget, the Georgian Finance Ministry has submitted to parliament a request to increase defense spending for 2008 by 295 million laris ($202.8 million), or approximately 29 percent, civil.ge reported on June 24.

WASHINGTON -- The United States and Iraq are signaling progress in negotiating what's called a Status-of-Forces Agreement (SOFA), which would set the rules for the presence of U.S. forces in the country.

Tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been rising for months. Now, they have hit a new peak.

Sixty years ago, the people of West Berlin were under blockade.