Egypt Marks a Spring for Islamists

Egyptians are deeply divided and the majority are dissatisfied with the performance of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, but also have little confidence in the main opposition figures or their future, a new poll has found.

Food Disparities Are Scandalous, Says Pope Francis

Pope Francis has challenged the Food and Agriculture Organisation to end global food disparities, describing it as scandalous that despite food abundance, millions of people still die of hunger.

Biofortification May Hold Keys to “Hidden Hunger”

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which works to end malnutrition among more than two billion people worldwide, is expressing strong support  for enriching the micronutrient content of plants.

Documenting Invasive Species on Colombia’s Plains

Along the unpaved road between the town of Orocué and the Wisirare private reserve in the eastern Colombian department of Casanare, biologist Juliana Cárdenas asks the driver to stop the bus so she can collect a specimen of West Indian foxtail, a kind of grass growing along the road.

Q&A: Family Farms Hold the Future of Food

A spirited campaign by the World Rural Forum (WRF) - a grouping of civil society organisations - led to the declaration of 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming by the U.N. General Assembly at its 66th session in 2011.

Time Still Not Right for Congolese Refugees to Return

Tuyisenge*, a former teacher from the Democratic Republic of Congo province of North Kivu, sat on a tree stump watching his fellow refugees go about their lives along the terraces of the hillside Kigeme Refugee Camp in southern Rwanda.

U.S. Ordered to Halt Linking Aid to Anti-Prostitution Oath

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a decade-long practise under which the government linked global HIV/AIDS funding to a controversial requirement that organisations explicitly state their opposition to prostitution.

Cancelling Fare Hike Fails to Quell Brazil Protests

Children of a generation that fought for basic rights like having enough to eat, learning to read and being treated in safer hospitals, the over 300,000 students protesting on the streets of Brazil want more from a democratic and economic system that no longer represents them and is beginning to show its limitations.

Arab Americans Aim at Preserving New York’s Little Syria

A brick red, six-story tenement house, St. George Melkite Church and a community house in desperate need of repair are nearly all that remain of a once thriving Arab-American community in downtown New York City.

U.S., EU Urged to Press Harder for Reform in Bahrain

Human rights groups here are calling for the United States and the European Union (EU) to exert more pressure on Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, to seriously engage its opposition and end its repression of its majority Shi'a population.

Climate Change Promises Tough Times for Asia and Africa – Report

Extreme heat, flooding and water and food shortages will rock South Asia and Africa by 2030 and render large sections of cities inhabitable, if the world continues to burn huge amounts of coal, oil and gas, the World Bank is warning.

Dams Threaten Mekong Basin Food Supply

The future of food security in the Mekong region lies at a crossroads, as several development ventures, including the Xayaburi Hydropower Project, threaten to alter fish migration routes, disrupt the flow of sediments and nutrients downstream, and endanger millions whose livelihoods depend on the Mekong River basin's resources.

Salvadoran Military List of Victims a Smoking Gun

The Salvadoran army kept a detailed list of names and photographs of leftists detained or sought during El Salvador’s 1980-1992 civil war. The report is the first official military document proving the armed forces’ direct involvement in forced disappearances and other abuses.

No Food Security Without Land Security

If slavery was a scourge to humanity, denying legitimate tenure rights is the cancer eating away the future of smallholder farmers who feed the world, often under trying conditions, say civil society organisations.

Q&A: “The Real Target Is Zero Hunger”

Under the leadership of Brazilian Director General (DG) José Graziano da Silva, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has been engaged in a process of deep reform meant to make the organisation leaner and more effective in the fight against hunger. 

U.N. Urges Turkish Police to Exercise “Restraint”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay have advised “maximum restraint” following media reports of a violent police crackdown on peaceful protestors in Istanbul’s Gezi Park.

Karzai ‘Willing to Join’ Taliban Peace Talks

The Afghan government has signaled it might join talks with the Taliban a day after President Hamid Karzai said he would boycott any peace talks unless they were led by his government, a spokesman from his administration told the AP news agency.

Straightening Out Accounts on Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

The bold strategy implemented by the Brazilian government has achieved an 84 percent reduction in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in the last eight years. But when the natural resources and pesticides used in agricultural production are taken into account, the environmental progress made is not so impressive.

Cambodia’s Opposition Fights Back

The violence that defined Cambodia during the years of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979) may have been relegated to the realm of history, but the actions of the ruling party ahead of the Jul. 28 election smack of the dirty politics that once ruled this Southeast Asian country.

A Catch for Stressed Ecosystems

The key to sustainable economic growth with an eye on fragile ecosystems is integrated management, FAO experts said here on Wednesday.

Swiss Doorways to Refugees Narrow

Once more, Swiss voters have lashed out against asylum seekers, further tightening the country's already strict asylum law. The government has meanwhile announced a radical restructuring of the asylum procedure.