The cycling campaign was launched by the Collective Campaign for Peace, an organization promoting human rights and justice in Nepal. © The Advocacy Project

According to the local Red Cross, more than 800 Nepalis were disappeared between 2001 and 2005 as a result of the King's oppressive rule and the armed Maoist insurgency. Although a peace agreement was signed in November 2006, the majority of these disappearances have not been resolved. For this reason, a group of local human rights advocates will spend a month bicycling through Nepal, meeting with relatives of those who disappeared, collecting information about unregistered cases, holding conferences, and collecting signatures for a petition to be submitted to the government. For more on the cyclists' campaign, visit today's features section.

Peace also seems to be coming slowly but surely to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, where the government and armed groups this week signed an agreement that the UN welcomed as an "important step" towards a cessation of hostilities. That's in news, and in analysis, rightist movements throughout Latin American gear up to challenge the new, leftist governments that have garnered immense support over the last couple of years.