U.N.’s Dollar-a-Year Jobs Under Critical Scrutiny
The 132-member Group of 77, the largest single coalition of developing nations, is challenging the longstanding prerogative of successive U.N. secretaries-general to appoint “special envoys” whose...
View ArticleIncomplete Justice in Killings of Amazon Activists
Peasants and human rights defenders in Brazil are indignant over the acquittal of the man accused of ordering the May 2011 murders of two prominent Amazon activists, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and...
View ArticleU.S. Aid to Post-Earthquake Haiti a “Black Box”
Following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, more than a billion dollars of U.S. aid money has gone to that country with little transparency or accountability on how the money is being used,...
View ArticleTroops May Join Mexico’s Fight Against Hunger
The Mexican government is considering using the armed forces, which face serious human rights accusations from their involvement in the war on drugs, to collect socioeconomic data from the low-income...
View ArticleFree Ticket to ‘Apartheid’
“At least we are not treated like dogs and made to feel so uncomfortable,” Amjad Samara, 30, a labourer from Nablus in the northern West Bank told IPS as he and a group of Palestinians waited at the...
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Tunisia Now Exporting “Jihadis”
Tunisian families have begun to dread knocks on their doors, or late-night phone calls, fearing that the messenger will bear the news that their son has been smuggled out of the country to join the...
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Q&A: Leaving Youth on the Streets Creates a ‘Social Disaster’
For homeless youth, life on the streets is brutal. They experience sky-high rates of mental health problems, substance abuse and sexual assault. But despite the fact that it costs just under 6,000 U.S....
View ArticleThese Kids Have Won Already
Oblivious to the cloud of dust they have kicked up in just a few minutes, panting and sweating, moving lithely, this way, then that, they jostle the ball smoothly until one team scores a goal. There’s...
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Moving on from Rwanda’s 100 Days of Genocide
Bernard Kayumba, the mayor of Karongi district in western Rwanda, remembers just what it was like to be caught up in the genocide that claimed the lives of almost one million people in 100 days 19...
View ArticleWater Shortage Hits Pacific Women
The Solomon Islands, a developing island nation in the south-west Pacific Islands, has one of the highest urbanisation rates in the region, and the basic service infrastructure is struggling to cater...
View ArticleEthiopia Leads the Bamboo Revolution
A combination of an abundance of bamboo and eager foreign investment is making Ethiopia a frontier for the bamboo industrial revolution in Africa, according to this country’s government. “Ethiopia has...
View ArticleThe Other Side of the Coin in Spain
Wholemeal rye bread, lettuce and chard are some of the products on offer from the El Caminito urban vegetable garden at the small organic produce market in this southern Spanish city, with prices set...
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Why Focus on Babies?
I nearly died on the day I was born. My mother laboured for 24 hours in a bush hospital in northern Uganda that had no running water and no electricity. Fortunately, the midwife found a doctor, who had...
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Q&A: Obesity and Hunger Are Two Sides of the Same Problem
Over 40 million children under the age of five were overweight in 2010. In fact, since 1980, the worldwide prevalence of obesity has doubled, according to the British medical journal the Lancet....
View ArticleWorld Bank to Strengthen Focus on Land Rights
The World Bank will be placing stronger emphasis on issues of land tenure and socially and environmentally sustainable agricultural investing, it announced Monday. The bank, one of the world’s largest...
View ArticleDaring Woman Enters the Contest
“My sole motive is to serve my people, especially women who have had no role in politics so far. I feel we can make progress only by bringing in women into mainstream politics.” These are the words of...
View ArticleThe Search for Swaziland’s TB-Infected Mine Workers
For more than a decade after 1992, when Swazi gold miner Benson Maseko, 50, fell ill with chest pains and a nagging cough, he did not seek treatment. Because of his illness, Maseko was retrenched...
View ArticleOP-ED: Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood and Democracy: A Sputtering Start
The governing programme of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood has been disappointing. His commitment to genuine democracy has been faltering, and his efforts at inclusion and...
View ArticleNeruda’s Death Helps Tear Veil Off Chilean Dictatorship
The investigation in Chile of the possibility that Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda was murdered by the 1973-1990 dictatorship is seen as a major stride forward in the search for truth and justice...
View ArticleU.S. Global Health Cuts Threaten Gains on Lethal Diseases
A U.S.-based civil society coalition is calling on Congress and President Barack Obama’s administration to keep spending on global health aid at current levels, warning that recent budget cuts risk a...
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