Here are some of IPS’s most-read stories of the past week — and stories you shouldn’t go without reading:

INDIA/PAKISTAN: Signs of a Thaw
Analysis by Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI (IPS) – A week after Islamabad admitted that the plot to carry out the Nov. 26-29 attacks on Mumbai was partially planned in Pakistan, and that Pakistani nationals were among the assailants, there are tentative signs that the strained relations between the two neighbours may be thawing.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45817

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US-AFGHANISTAN: Obama Nixed Full Surge After Quizzing Brass
By Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON (IPS) – President Barack Obama decided to approve only 17,000 of the 30,000 troops requested by Gen. David McKiernan, the top commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and Gen. David Petraeus, the CENTCOM commander, after McKiernan was unable to tell him how they would be used, according to a White House source.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45838

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IRAQ: Still Homeless in Baghdad
By Dahr Jamail
BAGHDAD (IPS) – “We only want a normal life,” says Um Qasim, sitting in a bombed out building in Baghdad. She and others around have been saying that for years.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45812

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KOSOVO: Unsteady on its First Birthday
By Apostolis Fotiadis
PRISTINA (IPS) – Young people took to the streets of Pristina well before midnight brought in the 17th of February and the first anniversary of Kosovo’s declaration of independence. They yelled and danced, waving the Albanian and occasionally the U.S. flags.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45796

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ARGENTINA: Two Drivers at the Wheel?
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES (IPS) – Former president Nestor Kirchner, while having no official government post, calls and receives ministers and governors, confidently choosing staff and distributing funds for public works projects.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45806

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ENVIRONMENT: Fighting for the Right to Fish
By Patrick Burnett*
CAPE TOWN (IPS/IFEJ) – “When my belly is crying I must fill it. I can sit on the side of the road and beg for bread, but there is the bread right there,” says Hahn Goliath, a fisherman in the small village of Doring Bay on South Africa’s West Coast, as he points furiously at the Atlantic Ocean.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45848

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CORRUPTION-PERU: Parliament Investigates PetroTech Sale
By Ángel Páez
LIMA (IPS) – At the government’s request, the Peruvian parliament has set up a commission to investigate alleged irregularities in the sale of Petro Tech Peruana (PTP) to Ecopetrol, the Colombian state oil company, and the South Korean National Oil Corporation (KNOC). But opposition politicians are sceptical of the outcome and have refused to participate.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45809

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ECONOMY-US: Squatters See Silver Lining in Foreclosed Homes
By Matthew Cardinale
MIAMI, Florida (IPS) – With foreclosures skyrocketing and U.S. families sinking deeper into poverty, a number of organisations are turning to a new strategy to end homelessness: moving families into vacant, foreclosed houses that are currently owned by banks or the government.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45808

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AUSTRALIA: Year Later Apology to Lost Generations Looks Hollow
By Stephen de Tarczynski
MELBOURNE (IPS) – One year after the historic apology made to indigenous Australians by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, on behalf of the nation, conjecture remains over whether enough has been done to support the acknowledgement of wrongs inflicted on the first Australians.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45829

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CULTURE-NIGERIA: Award-Winning Film Lands Director in Jail
By Carmen McCain
KANO (IPS) – The first time I visited award-winning Northern Nigerian filmmaker Hamisu Lamido Iyan-Tama in prison, a week after his arrest, the former Kano State gubernatorial candidate seemed to be in high spirits.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45788

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