Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has called for globalised human compassion to combat the global and persistent problems of child labour and child slavery. “We live in a globalised world, let us globalise human compassion, ” Satyarthi told an audience at the United Nations Tuesday. ... MORE > >

Balochistan, divided by the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, is a vast swathe of land the size of France. It boasts enormous deposits of gas, gold and copper, untapped sources of oil and uranium, as well as a thousand kilometres of coastline near the entrance to the Strait of ... MORE > >

The Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction concluded on Wednesday after a long drawn-out round of final negotiations, with representatives of 187 U.N. member states finally agreeing on what is being described as a far-reaching new framework for the next 15 years: 2015-2030. But ... MORE > >

A strike that has brought activity to a halt since January on three major banana plantations on Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coast, along the border with Panama, has highlighted the abuses in a sector in the hands of transnational corporations and has forced the governments of both countries to ... MORE > >

Nearly half of the world’s hungry, amounting to about 363 million people, live in some of the rising middle income countries, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Mexico, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute ... MORE > >

Nine million children live in areas affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, while thousands have lost parents to the virus, according to a new report from The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). More than 24,000 people, including 5,000 children, have been infected with Ebola since the ... MORE > >

When a group of women in the remote village of Sadhuraks in Pakistan’s Thar Desert, some 800 km from the port city of Karachi, were asked if they would want to be born a woman in their next life, the answer from each was a resounding ‘no’. They have every reason to be unhappy with their gender, ... MORE > >

Caribbean nations have begun work on a plan to ‘climate smart’ the region's fisheries as part of overall efforts to secure food supplies. The concept is in keeping with plans by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) to improve the “integration of agriculture and ... MORE > >

In the wake of the fire that destroyed more than 34,000 hectares of forests, some of them ancient, in Argentina’s southern Patagonia region, the authorities will have to put out flames that are no less serious: the new socio-environmental catastrophe that will emerge from the ashes. The worst ... MORE > >

Women play a critical role in reducing disaster risk and planning and decision-making during and after disasters strike, according to senior United Nations, government and civil society representatives. In fact, efforts at reducing risks can never be fully effective or sustainable if the needs ... MORE > >

Over the past three decades, 50 percent of the 544,150 square kilometres that comprise Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, has been taken over by the palm oil industry. “It will expand until it pushes us all into the ocean,” prophesies Mina Setra, deputy secretary-general ... MORE > >

It is estimated that women account for two-thirds of the 1.4 billion people currently living in extreme poverty. They also make up 60 per cent of the world’s 572 million working poor. Rapid global change has undoubtedly opened doors for women to participate in social, economic and political life ... MORE > >

Cyclone Pam has not only caused unprecedented damages to the Pacific island of Vanuatu but also lent urgency to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s plea that disaster risk reduction is in “everybody’s interest”. “Sustainability starts in Sendai,” Ban declared at the opening of the Third World ... MORE > >

Filipino Catholic priest and activist Reverend Father Robert Reyes, dubbed by media as the “running priest”, joined a protest of environmental and public health activists last week by running along the streets of the Makati Business District, the Philippines’ financial capital, to urge the ... MORE > >

Rural women make major contributions to rural economies by producing and processing food, feeding and caring for families, generating income and contributing to the overall well-being of their households – but, in many countries, they face discrimination in access to agricultural assets, education, ... MORE > >

Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the Americas, is tapping into its depleted coffers to upgrade its ageing military fleet with costly new equipment from Russia – a move that has sparked controversy at home and concern among the country’s Central American neighbours. The decision was ... MORE > >

On Apr. 6, 2013, Nadia Sharmeen, a crime reporter, was assigned to cover a rally organised by Hefazat-e-Islam, an association of fundamentalist Islamic groups in Bangladesh whose demands included a call to revoke the proposed National Women Development Policy. When Sharmeen arrived, she directed ... MORE > >

As the world inched towards a crucial United Nations Conference in Sendai, Japan, Margareta Wahlström, head of the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), assured that there was “general agreement” on the need to “move from managing disasters to managing disaster risk”.  The rationale ... MORE > >

Although global citizenship education has now received the recognition it deserves, much of the literature recycles old agendas under another name -  'education to promote peace and justice', 'sustainability', 'care for the environment', 'multi-faith' and 'multi-cultural understanding'  - and so ... MORE > >

Artificial meat. Indoor aquaculture. Vertical farms. Irrigation drones. Once the realm of science fiction, these things are now fact. Food production is going high tech – at least, in some places. But the vast majority of the world's farmers still face that old and fundamental fact: their crops, ... MORE > >

African wetlands are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the continent, covering more than 131 million hectares, according to the Senegalese-based Wetlands International Africa (WIA). Yet, despite their importance and value, wetland areas are experiencing immense pressure across ... MORE > >

The world is clearly splitting into two parallel worlds, with each going their own way, in what we could call the ‘Acapulco paradox’. Take the official version of the image of Acapulco – a splendid Mexican resort, with horse riding on the beaches, a place blessed by nature and enriched by ... MORE > >