CLIMATE CHANGE: Himalayan Nations Yet to Break the Ice

Chungda Sherpa, a former herder from eastern Nepal, has a warning tale ahead of the United Nations climate change conference in Durban.

ISRAEL: Women Push Back Into Public Space

They're looking at you "uncensored". Posters of women by women have recently multiplied on the holy city walls. "Women on billboards are back in Jerusalem," they proclaim defiantly.

U.S.: Bottled Water Companies Target Minorities, But So Do Soda Firms

Water is the lifeblood of this planet, whose inhabitants are watching its accelerated spiral into crisis mode even as they struggle to address the issues and lifestyles that are stretching the earth's resources thin.

Ex-Inspector Rejects IAEA Iran Bomb Test Chamber Claim

A former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repudiated its major new claim that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion.

INDIA: Dangers of a Lax Nuclear Strategy

On August 26, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan resigned, taking responsibility for the disastrous meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was caused by the March 2011 undersea earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

PAKISTAN: Beating the Taliban on the Playing Fields

An outbreak of sports fever has gripped the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Northern Pakistan, as increasing numbers of civilians and government officials latch on to team sports as their only armour against creeping militancy in the border region.

China Confronts its Own Greece

Europe has its Greece moment and China has its Wenzhou crisis. When European leaders were calling on China to step in and provide a lifeline to the eurozone by investing in its bailout programme, voices inside China were saying Beijing should save Wenzhou and forget about Europe.

EL SALVADOR: Giving Young Slum Dwellers a Chance

In a country where hard-line policies have failed to make a dent in soaring levels of violent crime, Salesian priest José María Moratalla has produced good results by offering educational and vocational opportunities to juvenile offenders and young people at risk of falling into crime.

U.S. Leads Challenge to Ban on Cluster Munitions

Deliberations are underway for a United States-backed proposal to allow the continued use, production, trade and stockpiling of cluster munitions at the Fourth Review Conference of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva.

Unique Mexican Oasis in Danger of Vanishing

A rare wetlands ecosystem in the Chihuahuan desert in northern Mexico that may hold key information about the origins of life on earth – and even about possible life on Mars – is in serious danger of disappearing if water continues to be extracted by agribusiness concerns, local scientists warn.

Microfinance Works – For the Rich

Jesús Guerra, a volunteer at this week’s Fifth Global Microcredit Summit in this Spanish town, was nonplussed by the expensive gold watch sported by a banker from a developing country.

CENTRAL ASIA: Together They Lose

Rarely have so many donor countries spent so much for so long to achieve so little. In fact, the scores of Western countries ranging from the Netherlands to the United States that have tried for 20 years to coax the Central Asian nations to use their water cooperatively and create a win-win situation for all have found that the Central Asians are cooperating less and less, not more and more.

The Rush for Oil in West Africa – The New Wild West?

There is a new oil rush off the coast of West Africa. But there are fears that the sector is not sufficiently regulated, and watchdog groups are raising concerns about transparency and governance in the region.

U.S.: Occupy Movement Pushes Back in Coordinated Day of Action

Tens of thousands of people in hundreds of cities across the country flooded streets, public squares and university campuses in the largest nationwide action since the first group of occupiers set up its encampment in New York City exactly two months ago Thursday.

US-IRAN: Key Senator Pushes “Nuclear Option” Against Central Bank

Amid simmering tensions surrounding Iran's nuclear programme, a key pro-Israel U.S. senator has tabled legislation that would effectively ban international financial companies that do business with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) from participating in the U.S. economy.

BRAZIL: ‘Pacification’ of Favelas Not Just a Media Circus

The "take-over" of Rocinha, one of Rio de Janeiro's largest favelas, by heavily armed police and military units was seen by some as a media spectacle and by others as part of a successful strategy of regaining state control over an area ruled by armed drug gangs.

Q&A: The Finer Points of Rising Sea Levels

Long before the Pacific will rise to a level that will leave its estimated 30,000 islands submerged, most of them might be severely affected by frequent flooding and storms.

Global South Needs New Path of Development

The convergence of leading countries from the global South - China, India, Brazil and South Africa, among others - to assist the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere constitutes a new "dynamic" in the emerging global economic partnerships, says the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

MEXICO: Communities Organise Against Spiralling Violence

A pressing concern of Mexican communities today is how to organise against the escalation of violence triggered by the government's militarised war on drugs, and how to counteract the temptation of easy money and other perks offered by the drug trade, especially to young men.

ASEAN Agrees to Let Myanmar Lead Bloc

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, have approved Myanmar's request to chair the Southeast Asian regional bloc in 2014, giving the country some long-sought international recognition.

Q&A: NATO Intervention in Libya Was “Recolonisation”

Brazilian journalist and writer Mário Augusto Jakobskind was thwarted in his attempt to visit Libya during the civil war there, but in spite of this he produced a lucid analysis of the situation in the North African country and of the forces that have taken power after the fall of the Muammar Gaddafi regime.