Elections

The transitional government's forces have been battling pro-Gaddafi forces in Sirte, and it seems that bringing most of their artillery material might have paid off as they insist they were able to advance several km (miles) into the city, capturing the southern district of Bouhadi.

After winning over the U.S. and the world with his 'Yes we can' slogan, Obama's next presidential campaign announces itself gloomier and harder than its precedent as a new poll suggest a majority of Americans expect him to be a one-term president, only, prompting the president to call himself an 'underdog.'

While the situation in Libya is still far from stable as the National Transitional Council forces are still fighting pro-Gaddafi forces and the new government struggles to implement the transitional plan regulating the transitional phase, emerging political voices are starting to surface. For example include the Berbers, who after fighting with the NTC now want to be assured more political space in the 'new' Libya.

Amid international outrage, King Abdullah of Saudi has decided to revoke a sentence condemning a Saudi woman to be lashed 10 times for defying the country's ban on female drivers.

Saudi Arabia King Abdullah has overturned a court ruling which sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for breaking the country's ban on female drivers, reports say.

Just two days after Saudi King Abdullah's announced that Saudi women would be allowed to participate in elections, two Saudi women were punished for breaking the ban on female driving with one being sentenced to 10 lashes by a court in Jeddah while another was detained in Riyadh, leading rights activists to question the King's apparent new reformist tendencies.

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for breaking the county's ban on female drivers, according to Amnesty International.

Women in Saudi Arab will be able to vote in local elections and they can even become members of the country's top advisory body, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud announced.

As the date set for the Palestinian UN statehood bid approaches, tensions between the supporters and opponents to the planned request are mounting, and with the U.S publicly opposing the bid, Obama's image in the Muslim world is set to dwindle even more.

I was speaking to a young couple from Madrid a couple of weeks back. They were on a camping holiday, a treat paid partly by their respective parents. Things were very bad in Spain they told me and both were most concerned about getting work. The young lady said: "Everybody's going to either Madrid or Barcelona...Really the only two places in the country where you can find anything. It's not good in the north (of Spain) and the south is just devastated."

Months after ousting Mubarak, the dictator who many called the Pharaoh, Egyptians are still living under emergency laws and are ruled by a military council full of the former president's old ministers and advisors while the economic and social situation has slowly continued to degrade.

UK has tightened rules effectively curbing immigration.

Ed Miliband has launched a bid to emulate Tony Blair by taking on the unions that fund, and some say control, the Labour Party.

With revelations that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has prostate cancer that may kill him within two years, the race for succession in Zimbabwe is set to get even more heated.

In the last few months European figureheads and leaders have been rocked by a series of scandals, which is set to damage their credibility and ability to criticise other regimes or insist on the necessities of values which they see as inherent to the history of their countries.

Anna Hazare is still making the headlines as, in addition to being embattled in a fight with the Indian government, the anti-corruption activist's determination to continue his hunger strike, has now been criticised by top ruling party figure Rahul Gandhi, a descendent of one of the most powerful political families in the country.

The collapse of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime has made the headlines for the last six months. An enemy of the West that went through a short rehabilitation period was seen in Africa as a Pan-Africanist. While Gaddafi had instated a real cult of personality in Libya, with statues and images of him adorning the streets, his attitude also made him a well-known figure throughout the continent.

As the 41-year-old regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi is falling apart, leaving space for the National Transitional Council to take over the country, analysts are already attempting to look at the consequences of the fall of the man that managed to cling to power for so many years.

Zimbabwean police have launched an investigation to uncover the cause of the fire that killed one of Zimbabwe's most powerful men, retired General Solomon Mujuru on Tuesday.

The Dalai Lama presided over a ceremony which saw a new prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile sworn in.

Prime Minster David Cameron has turned his back on his pledge to give the British public a vote on EU membership.

Two young women decided to show their support for Russian president Dmitry Medvedev by stripped down to their bikinis in central Moscow on Thursday.

he Thai House of Representatives on Friday morning elected Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as the new prime minister of Thailand.

After weeks of debate, struggles and hesitation, a divided US House of Representatives has approved a massive austerity plan to prevent the U.S. from entering into default.

As Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing the strongest wave of protests since he took office, he was forced to announce that members of his government would meet protesters to try and calm public discontent.In the last two weeks, tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to demonstrate against the rising living costs, putting pressure on Netanyahu and asking for reforms.

US Republican leaders are frantically trying to rescue their deficit-cutting bill hours as the party, fractured and divided, struggles to find a consensus.A House of Representatives vote planned on Thursday night had to be re-scheduled after the plan proposed failed to heal the rift that divides the Conservative leading observers to say an internal revolt now threatens the party, which in due of the Presidential elections in 2012, does not come as good news for their partisans.

Star of the headlines since a New York maid accused him of sexually assaulting her, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a previous favourite to run against French President Nicholas Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential elections, is now embroiled in two different cases both serious charges of attempted rape and sexual assault. In order to better understand the affairs, here is a review of each cases, and the women behind them.

The news that Britain is now open to the idea of Colonel Gaddafi spending his retirement in Libya, as opposed to being dragged off to an absurd court in Northern Europe, does not come as any great surprise.

An student intern who witnessed the attacks unfold in Oslo speaks to IBTimes

Just a week before the Aug. 2 deadline for Congress to act, hope for a compromise between Republican and Democratic proposals, and with Washington looking stuck in an impasse, Washington the mood in the U.S. is becoming more and more tensed as the risks of a downgrade to the top-notch US credit rating are looming everyday a little bit closer.