11 May 2013 Last updated at 08:23 GMT
Pakistan votes in landmark election
Voting is under way across Pakistan in landmark national and provincial elections.
The vote marks Pakistan's first transition from one civilian government to another in its 66-year history.
However, the run-up to the election has been marred by violence in which more than 100 people have been killed.
A bomb blast in the port city of Karachi on Saturday morning left 11 people dead and 40 others wounded, officials said.
Tens of thousands of troops are deployed at polling stations after the Pakistani Taliban threatened to carry out suicide attacks.
Hours before polls opened, Pakistan sealed its borders with Iran and Afghanistan in a bid to keep foreign militants at bay.
'They slapped us if we argued. We wiped our tears and went to work': The brutal existence of a Bangladeshi garment worker
Tahmina Akhter Sadia was in the Rana Plaza when it collapsed. She describes how the disaster unfolded
Tuesday 23 April began began like every day. I woke up around 7am, helped my mother prepare breakfast, kissed my two sisters and baby brother goodbye and left our house near the hospital in Savar.
My walk to the Rana Plaza took about half an hour. I worked on the seventh floor at New Wave Styles, where we made clothes for international brands including Primark, Texman, Pellegrini, Siplec and Yves Dorsey. All the workers in the building used the stairs on one side – the other staircase from the market side is not for us. I had heard from another friend, Riva, who works at Ether Tex on the fifth floor, that there was a fire escape towards the back of the building, but I had never seen it.
Dutch media owner reveals youthful dalliance with IRA
Disillusionment set in as he watched Provos turn from ‘freedom fighters to gangsters’
Peter Cluskey
A Dutch media baron with substantial publishing interests in Russia has revealed how, as a 19-year-old would-be journalist in search of a story to make his name, he travelled to Northern Ireland and became involved in gun-running for the IRA.
Derk Sauer (60) – whose Independent Media owns Russian titles including the English-language Moscow Times , and who is part-owner of the daily NRC Handelsblad in the Netherlands – said he had smuggled weapons “a few times” in the early 1970s, before becoming disillusioned.
“As an aspiring young journalist, I went to the closest war,” Mr Sauer, a high-profile supporter of the Dutch Socialist Party who lives in Moscow, said in an interview withDe Volkskrant newspaper.
Lost in Paradise: The Chained-Up Mentally Ill of Bali
By Katrin Kuntz
Not far from the glistening beaches of Bali, mentally ill people are kept in chains or locked up in small shacks. Locals simply don't know what else to do with them. But psychiatrist Luh Ketut Suryani has made it her job to set them free.
Before Luh Ketut Suryani leaves paradise, she applies lipstick in the rearview mirror of her SUV. Suryani wants to look good when she encounters the horrors of the day. On this particular morning, she selects a deep red color.
Police stations bombed in Libya
Bombs exploded outside two police stations in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi on Friday and Britain temporarily cut staff at its embassy in Tripoli because of security fears.
The blasts, which caused damage but no casualties, were the latest signs of insecurity in Benghazi, the birthplace of the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The government has also struggled to keep order in the capital Tripoli, where the French embassy was bombed less than three weeks ago. Armed groups seized control of two government ministries a few days later to press demands on parliament and have refused to leave until the prime minister steps down.
“Given the security implications of the ongoing political uncertainty, the British Embassy is temporarily withdrawing a small number of staff,” an embassy statement said, adding that the mission would continue to operate as usual.
Move over Beyoncé: Another American explores Cuba, 'people to people'
Like Beyoncé and Jay-Z, the Monitor's Linda Feldmann travels Cuba on a 'people to people' tour. Since 2011, such trips have had the sanction of the Treasury Department – a legal way for Americans to see the long-forbidden island.
Raul leans forward, at the end of a satisfying lunch of seafood and flan, and asks me a favor.
“Please give a message to Obama,” says the deeply tan fisherman with electric eyes. The crucial message that I am to personally deliver to the leader of the free world: that the president has a kindred spirit inCuba. “He is a mason, and I am a mason,” Raul says.
I have my doubts about the first half of the message, but no matter. Our table of visiting Americans – plus Osvaldo, our Cuban guide – has had quite the conversation with Raul Sierra Carriles, president of the local fishermen’s cooperative.
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