Mexico’s Institutions Overwhelmed by Scale of Forced Disappearances

Mexican police officer Luis Ángel León Rodríguez disappeared along with six other officers and a civilian on Nov. 16, 2009, in the western Mexican state of Michoacán. Six days later, his mother, Araceli Rodríguez, began her ceaseless search.

Battle Against Hunger Lost Without Gender Empowerment

When the United Nations launched its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) back in 2001, two of its primary objectives were to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 and promote gender empowerment worldwide.

A Hope That Didn’t Sail for Malaysian Youth

They had voted for “ubah” or change. What the youth of Malaysia got instead seems to be more of the same.

Britain to Compensate Tortured Kenyans

Britain has agreed to compensate Kenyans tortured during the Mau Mau uprising against colonial rule in the 1950s, Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday.

Gezi Park Highlights Years of Destructive Urban Development

Few imagined that the symbolic act of standing in front of bulldozers in Istanbul's Gezi Park in an effort to block a development project near the city's central square would have caused the reaction it did.

Tackle Malnutrition Now

Between 2010 and 2012, 868 million people worldwide were deemed hungry by a conservative definition. This figure represents only a small fraction of the world’s population whose health and lives are blighted by malnutrition.

OPED – Austerity Bad for Recovery

No wonder the Euro zone countries, including Germany, are witnessing growing protests against the severe austerity measures. The unemployment rate in the Euro zone has exceeded 12% with close to 20 million people, mostly young, without a job.

Mexico’s Institutions Overwhelmed by Scale of Forced Disappearances

Mexican police officer Luis Ángel León Rodríguez disappeared along with six other officers and a civilian on Nov. 16, 2009, in the western Mexican state of Michoacán. Six days later, his mother, Araceli Rodríguez, began her ceaseless search.

“There is nothing heroic about war”

A mother holds on to a blood-soaked pair of jeans her son was wearing when he was gunned down during a battle.

Malnutrition Still Killing Three Million Children Under Five

Kevin’s Carter’s disturbing picture of the 1993 famine in Sudan won him a Pulitzer Prize.

Ethiopia’s Protest Leaders Say No Change in Government

Despite speculation that the first anti-government protest in eight years, which was held this week in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, might signal new levels of political tolerance by the government, leaders of the political party that organised the protest say this cannot be further from the truth.

Looking to Cameroon’s Women Senators

Marlyse Aboui, a 40-year-old nurse, has still not gotten over the astonishment she felt when she heard that Cameroon’s President Paul Biya had nominated her to the senate.

Rice Replaces Donilon as Obama’s Top Foreign Policy Adviser

In a reshuffle of top foreign policy posts in his second term, U.S. President Barack Obama Wednesday announced that his controversial and blunt-spoken U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, will replace Tom Donilon as his national security adviser.

U.S. Denounces Egyptian NGO Trial Results

President Barack Obama’s administration and several major rights groups are reacting with frustration to the decision of an Egyptian court, announced Tuesday night, to convict 43 civil society organisations and 16 U.S. employees of illegal use of foreign funds.

Turkey’s Excessive Neo-liberalism Threatens ‘Peace at Home’

"Peace at home, peace in the world" is the official motto of the Turkish Republic. Coined in 1931 by the republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, it implies a causal relationship, but the events this week in Istanbul and dozens of other cities of Turkey suggest that causality can work in reverse order, too.

Overcoming “Strategic Suspicion” – Goal of Obama-Xi Summit

This week’s relatively informal and unscripted summit between the presidents of the United States and China on a private estate in southern California is being welcomed by most analysts here as a virtually unprecedented opportunity for each side to gain a better understanding of the strategic aims of the other.

Children Help Take Care of Havana Bay

On a piece of paper, Jennifer Rivas draws a beach, with little girls carrying bags of trash and signs that say “Let’s take care of the environment.” The 10-year-old is part of an educational programme, Friends of the Bay, that involves 322 schools in the Cuban capital.

French Town Makes Environment Everyone’s Business

Christina E. is a mother of three who lives in an apartment building in an upscale neighbourhood in Paris. As someone who prepares meals daily, she wishes she had a place besides her household garbage bin where she could put biodegradable waste.

Shift in Latin America’s Approach to Drugs – from Security to Health Issue

The drug problem should be tackled not as a security issue but as a public health question, with policies for "prevention, treatment and rehabilitation," delegations from the 34 countries participating in the 43rd General Assembly of the Organisation of American States agreed.

When the Health System Is Taken Ill

Leaning on her daughter’s arm in the post-operative ward of a hospital in Srinagar, capital of the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, Raja Begam views the anti-infection pill she is being offered with a large dose of suspicion.

“Syria Peace Meeting Will Not Happen in June”: UN Envoy

A conference on ending the fighting in Syria will not happen in June, as planned, because both sides in the conflict are unprepared to attend, the U.N.'s international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said.