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

MEXICO: New Visa Requirement Complicates Travel to Canada
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jul 14 (IPS) – Jair Gutiérrez was lucky, because he was able to make a stopover in Canada on his way to Japan without being asked for a visa. But things have changed now for the thousands of Mexicans who pass through, visit or move to the North American country every year.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47662

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EUROPE: A Year On, Sarkozy’s Euromed Struggles
By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa Al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jul 14 (IPS) – A year ago Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy launched the Union for the Mediterranean, or Euromed, a grouping of European Union nations plus 16 non- EU Mediterranean states. Since then, critics say, the initiative has made little tangible progress.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47653

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Q&A: Tax Havens, Bank Secrecy, and Tricks
Lucy Komisar interviews BOB ROACH, Chief Investigator of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate
MIAMI, Florida, Jul 14 (IPS) – At a recent conference in Miami organised by Offshore Alert, a specialised media organisation focused on financial crime, IPS correspondent Lucy Komisar sat down with veteran investigator Bob Roach to discuss the hurdles facing regulators trying to crack down on tax havens, which cost the U.S. alone an estimated 100 billion dollars annually.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47658

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SRI LANKA: Aid Organisations Struggle to Operate in Post-war Sri Lanka
By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO, Jul 14 (IPS) – The Sri Lankan government wants the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to scale down its operations in the country, but is sparing other international nongovernmental organisations amid questions over the post-war role for humanitarian workers.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47657

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ENERGY: Germany Gets Some Nuclear Jolts
By Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Jul 15 (IPS) – The faults at the nuclear plant at Kruemmel near Hamburg surfaced just three days after Chancellor Angela Merkel declared nuclear energy “indispensable” to Germany.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47666

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MIDEAST: Turkey Gets Boost from Pipeline Politics
Analysis by Helena Cobban*
WASHINGTON, Jul 17 (IPS) – The political geography of the modern Middle East has been affected for one hundred years by the appetite of westerners and other outsiders for the region’s hydrocarbons.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47708

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ALBANIA: Short on Homework for Joining EU
By Claudia Ciobanu
BUCHAREST, Jul 15 (IPS) – Membership of the EU will be the principal target of the re-elected government in Albania.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47665

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MIDEAST: Israeli Spy Ring Threatens Fragile Peace
By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, Jul 14 (IPS) – The UN Security Council has warned that the existence of a large Israeli-run espionage network in Lebanon could threaten a fragile peace established between the two countries following the end of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47654

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Q&A: “My Boyfriend Insisted I Quit Dancing, My Answer Was No”
Suad Hamada interviews TUFAHA, the first Bahraini belly dancer
MANAMA, Jul 14 (IPS) – She has had to change her name, sever links with her family and boyfriend, and even move cities because of male stalkers in the Bahraini capital. But no “sacrifice” is too much in the pursuit of her dream for Tufaha, just 24.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47649

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Q&A: The Threatened Have Some Friends
Miren Gutierrez* interviews AHMED DJOGHLAF, Executive Secretary of the
Convention on Biological Diversity
BELLAGIO, Italy, Jul 17 (IPS) – Declining amphibian populations, dwindling fish stocks, waning ocean biodiversity, loss of forests…All scientists acknowledge that the rate of species loss is greater now than at any time in human history.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47698

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