Caribbean Fed Up with U.S. Rum Subsidies
Caribbean governments have begun a quiet lobbying effort to convince Washington to rethink the subsidies it grants to the rum industry in U.S. territories, or face a formal complaint in the World Trade...
View ArticleEvolving HIV Strains Worry Indian Scientists
While India has drastically reduced the spread of HIV over the past decade, new strains of the virus that cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are troubling medical scientists in this...
View ArticleA Memorial of White Scarves Protests Calderón’s Legacy
Each scarf represents a life cut short. Each stitch, a tear. Each thread, a cry of frustration about death and impunity. The Mexican hands embroidering for peace belong to mothers searching for missing...
View ArticleMajor New U.S. AIDS Plan Disallows Funding for Family Planning
At perhaps a critical turning point in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, the U.S. government, the single largest funder in that fight, on Thursday unveiled a major new strategy for pushing towards...
View ArticlePalestine Scores Overwhelming Victory in World Body
Amidst thunderous applause – and the ceremonious unfurling of a Palestinian flag in the General Assembly hall – the U.N.’s highest policy-making body Thursday voted overwhelmingly to elevate Palestine...
View ArticleSmoking Kills Mostly the Poor in India
Mujeeb Rahuman (39), a mason in the Venjaramoodu village in Thiruvananthapuram, the southernmost district in India’s coastal Kerala state, has been a chain smoker for the past twenty years. Rahuman...
View ArticleMining Saps a Thirsty Desert
The Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in the southern Gobi desert in Mongolia has become a symbol of a looming crisis: a limited water supply that could be exhausted within a decade, seriously threatening...
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Fossil Fuel Lobby in the Driver’s Seat at Doha
A new scientific report shows that global warming can be kept well under two degrees C, but only if most of the known deposits of coal, oil and gas remain in the ground. Solar, wind and other forms of...
View ArticleStriving to Increase African Food Productivity
For decades food security and self-sufficiency in Africa have been seen as a distant dream. The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, however, hopes to make it a reality, and while it...
View ArticleTiny Barbuda Fears Increasingly Hostile Climate
Local scientists are warning the tiny 62-square-mile island of Barbuda is becoming one of the most vulnerable spots on earth to the consequences of climate change. “We are small, we are flat…and if the...
View ArticleMorelos Is a Beacon of Juvenile Justice in Mexico
In a country like Mexico, identified with soaring crime rates, impunity, police corruption and a largely dysfunctional justice system, reports of judicial efficiency are rare, especially in the case of...
View ArticleOutgoing Mexican President’s Environmental Legacy Questioned
“A Canadian firm wants to extract minerals in our area; it will harm the environment and use up water needed by the community,” complained Hipólito García, who lives in Tetlama, 110 kilometres south of...
View ArticleColombian Peace Talks Invite Citizen Input*
The Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas will resume the peace talks in the Cuban capital on Dec. 5, in a climate of moderate optimism surrounding a process in which citizen participation could...
View ArticleU.S. Senate Passes New Sanctions on Iran
The U.S. Senate approved a new round of economic sanctions against Iran Friday, ignoring warnings by the White House that the additional measures could prove counter-productive to the goal of...
View ArticleThe Economic Cost of Kenya’s Insecurity
The wave of insecurity that has hit Kenya in the last few months is causing severe damage to the country’s recovering economy, local economists have warned. Abdi Mohammed, an investment analyst at...
View ArticleTrawlers Glide Past International Fishing Laws
Somali pirates on the southwest Indian Ocean have become one of the biggest security risks for commercial maritime shipping over the last several years. But even as piracy gave rise to international...
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DRC – Wishing the Rebels Would Remain
Lined up along a dirt path that meanders its way up into the lush war-torn mountains surrounding the small town of Sake, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, hundreds of young rebel soldiers sat on...
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Q&A: How Innovative Funding Combats HIV/AIDS
On World AIDS Day, the fact that the number of children newly infected with HIV continues to decline is welcome news to UNITAID, the International Drug Purchase Facility hosted by the World Health...
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Q&A: Combating Gay Stigma Critical in Fight Against AIDS
As the international community comes together on Dec. 1 to celebrate World AIDS Day, a new report from UNAIDS reveals that while significant progress has been made in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS,...
View ArticleThere’s Life in the AIDS Ribbon
Thirty-year old Swapna Raj of Hyderabad is a woman in a hurry: in time for the International AIDS day Swapna, a HIV positive person on anti-retroviral therapy (ART), has received a contract from the...
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