The Economist

Despite President Lukashenka’s threats to put an end to the demonstrations occurring in Belarus, young activists are expanding the pro democracy movement on social networking sites.

Young Belarussians are protesting President Lukashenka's economic policies by hosting clapping protests every week.

Belarus sealed its borders with the West to control the resale of petrol. Now, citizens who once made a profit off of selling smuggled goods on the black market are struggling to make a living.

Citizens of Belarus are beginning to use social networking sites to plan protests against reckless government spending.

America wants to end the reign of the brutal rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army. But can it?

In a three-day diary, Jason Motlagh examines how the Taliban is evolving to overcome the U.S. army's counter-insurgency tactics.

OUTSIDE the main hospital in San Cristóbal de las Casas, women in traditional multicoloured garb queue up to see a doctor. Many are pregnant or carry infants on their backs. One expectant mother says she fears there will not be a bed for her when she enters labour—all too common in the overcrowded hospital. Tales of deaths from hypertension, haemorrhage or infection during or after giving birth are common in the second city of the state of Chiapas. In a nearby village, one doctor recalls a woman whose journey took so long that she died on the street outside his clinic.

ARRIVING at the end of the deadliest month yet for American forces in Afghanistan and amid allegations of widespread vote-rigging in its recent presidential election, General Stanley McChrystal's review of the Afghan war comes at a gloomy time. In a strategic assessment this week, General McChrystal, the commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has described the situation on the ground as serious. He tempered his gloom by saying that the war is still winnable but argued that a new strategy is needed.

Political will is scarcer than food.

After a long, hot summer of protests against Indian rule, an uneasy calm descended on the Kashmir valley for the holy month of Ramadan. In a bid to reignite mass protests, separatist leaders had called for another pro-independence march this week on Lal Chowk, the commercial hub of the summer capital. The authorities responded with a two-day, shoot-on-sight curfew. Protests were abandoned. After a crackdown over the past few months that has left at least 45 people dead, mostly killed when troops opened fire on crowds, this was understandable.