In this week's Rights & Wrongs: Egyptians fight back against a government crackdown on political dissidence; a push against the historical impunity of Latin American officials grows; a new effort to end the death penalty worldwide; and the Philippine government institutes a process for the quicker investigation of complaints against government security forces. Rights & Wrongs covers the world's major human rights-related happenings and appears in WPR every week.

The crisis in Myanmar has bedeviled the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at a time when its members had hoped to focus on celebrating the organization's 40th anniversary. Although most other ASEAN governments oppose the military government's repression of Myanmar's peaceful opposition, they have proven unable to break fully with their traditional policy of non-interference in member governments' internal affairs.

We are involved now in a race against time. Who will prove faster: the engineers building the centrifuges in Iran or the exponents of tougher sanctions in the EU? It depends upon the unity of the EU member states. Sarkozy's initiative would establish the same conditions for companies in all EU countries. How, then, have the others reacted to it? Berlin and Vienna are standing on the frontlines: not however with those who are attempting to avert the catastrophe, but rather with those who are paving the way for it.

For almost a generation, wealthy and well-fed Europe has been bringing forth too few children to replenish its graying population. As states have begun to feel the demographic slip, European politicians have pondered how best to tackle the issue. Fearful of a future in which economies collapse, social ties weaken, and the elderly can no longer be sustained by paltry working-age populations, governments are doing whatever they can to encourage couples to have more children.

On Oct. 6, 2007, the leaders of the Eurasian Economic Community (Eurasec) convened their 15th anniversary summit at Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin described this session of the Eurasec Intergovernmental Council as one of the organization's most successful, the most notable development at the meeting was Moscow's decision to pursue deeper economic integration with only some of the organization's members.

PRISTINA and MITROVICA, Kosovo -- Kosovo will make a unilateral declaration of independence within days of the delivery of a report to the U.N. on Dec. 10, according to the breakaway Serbian province's prime minister, Agim Ceku. But what then? Kosovo has declared independence twice before, but only secured the recognition of neighboring Albania. But the province's prime minister is confident that the situation will be different this time. There will be "a wave" of official recognition, he says.