PAKISTAN: Gem of a Plan Against Taliban

Mining gems and other valuable minerals may provide, the Pakistan government hopes, alternate careers to militancy in the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), bordering Afghanistan.

ZAMBIA: Outlook Dim for Women Candidates

Although there is a female presidential candidate contesting Zambia's Sept. 20 general elections, her prospects are not strong. And in fact, fewer women overall are likely to be elected into public office this year, analysts say.

ICRC Warns of Human Toll of Attacks on Medical Workers

A new report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) describes a pattern of attacks on medical staff that the group says is undermining the safe delivery of medical assistance and health care across the globe.

OPED: PUGWASH MOVEMENT AIMS AT ELMINATION OF ALL WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Years ago, at the height of the Cold War on 26 June 1963 President John F. Kennedy famously proclaimed in Berlin, "Ich bin ein Berliner" identifying himself with the beleaguered city where a wall had just been erected isolating West Berlin and its citizens. Years later, from July 1-4 2011, over 330 Pugwashites from about 43 countries converted themselves to being Berliners striving to break down the walls among and around them.

MALAWI: Remaining in the Dark

Malawi’s attempts to improve trade and investment in the country have taken a huge step backwards following a decision by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a United States government foreign aid agency leading the fight against global poverty, to put on hold 350.7 million dollars meant to improve the country’s flawed energy sector.

DR-CONGO: Widespread Impunity Undermines Upcoming Polls

Controversy over its electoral process has dominated headlines on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the months preceding highly anticipated polls, but an international human rights group shifted the world's attention to another, not unrelated problem Wednesday - the country's feeble judicial system.

KENYA: Post Election Violence Victims Still Suffer

The Mawingu camp for internally displaced persons affected by Kenya’s 2007- 2008 post-election violence is a desolate place. Located in the Rift Valley, the camp is a collection of tattered, sagging and forlorn tents.

South Africa makes gender strides in ports

South Africa is taking small steps in reaching the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of gender equality and empowering women by taking to the sea.

“New” Iraq a Nightmare for Women, Minority Groups

A United Nations report on Iraq says the human rights situation there remains fragile, and huge development challenges loom as the country transitions out of a near decade-long conflict.

Somali Women Bear Superhuman Burden

While the exit of the Al-Qaeda-backed rebel group Al Shabaab has led to the first U.N. relief airlift in five years in the capital of famine-wracked Somalia, the situation for women and children remains precarious, humanitarian workers warn.

DR CONGO: Fresh Start for DR Congo’s Coffee Producers

Long years of civil war and instability set off a crippling decline in coffee production in the Democratic Republic of Congo: the country's output in 2010 was less than a tenth the harvest twenty years earlier. Now the DRC government has a strategy to bolster recovery of the sector.

Aid Agencies Complain Lack of Funding to Battle Africa Famine

As the widespread famine in the Horn of Africa takes a turn for the worse, humanitarian aid organizations are lamenting the lack of aid being delivered to those in need and have called on the United States and the rest of the world to step up relief efforts, while redoubling their own efforts.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Geologists Warn of Landslide Risks in Capital

Four marginalized neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa are at "high risk" of facing major landslides during the rainy season, a team of geologists from Costa Rica concluded after a three-week study in Honduras.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Logging Threatens 7,000 Square Kilometers in the Amazon

The Amazon could lose another 7,000 square kilometers of forests by July 2012, according to a report on the risk of deforestation released by the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (Imazon).

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Anti-Transgenic Food Campaign

Greenpeace Mexico has a launched a computer application called "Clean Out Your Cupboards" to help consumers avoid industrially processed and genetically modified foods.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Relocation of Electric Power Substation Demanded

Environmental and social organizations in the Argentine city of Berazategui are calling for the relocation of an electric power substation to a less populated area and legislation on the placement of these facilities.

After the Arab Spring, an Israeli Summer

"The people demand social justice!" Across the country's major cities, over 300,000 demonstrators, five percent of Israel's Jewish population, chanted the rallying call for the third consecutive Saturday.

ISRAEL: High Costs Force New Settlements of Sorts

About 10,000 people marched through the streets of downtown Jerusalem last week chanting "The people demand social justice" and calling for access to affordable housing. The demonstration was one of about a dozen taking place simultaneously throughout Israel – which drew nearly 150,000 total protesters – as part of a growing movement against the high cost of housing and living expenses.

Early diagnosis needed to fight TB

Tuberculosis kills 1.7 million people every year. In sub-Saharan Africa, the disease is also a major killer of people living with HIV. Stigma, poor adherence to medicines and lack of early diagnosis plagues the management of TB in these states.

Tunisian Women Fear the Algerian Way

A women’s group begins campaigning near La Marsa beach in Tunis to convince more women to come up and register in the electoral lists, in time for the deadline now pushed back to Aug. 14. Most of the women watching the proceedings are veiled.

SUDAN: Congressional Hearings Paint Picture of Crisis and Atrocities

Witnesses' chilling depictions of a new Sudanese genocide at an emergency congressional hearing Thursday quelled any remnants of doubt that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Nuba mountain region of South Kordofan.