Money for Salt: How the Country of the Young Is Failing Its Elderly

Carolina Poalo strikes the dry earth over and over with her hoe, her frail body bent almost double. She is determined to begin planting. During the long, dry season in Mozambique, she and her two young grandchildren have eaten little but cassava leaves.

Palestinian Authority Faces Fiscal Crisis, As World Bank Blames Israelis

With a shortfall of some 400 million dollars this year, the Palestinian Authority (PA) faces a “deepening fiscal crisis", according to new reports released here Wednesday on the eve of a critical donors’ conference by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Donors Urged to Give Space to New Somali Govt

Both the U.S. government and the United Nations warned Wednesday that new fighting in a key rebel-held area of Somalia needed to ensure the safety of civilians, in a battle that could be a critical turning point following the country’s recent surprise election results and decades of lawlessness.

EU Cap ‘Only Boosts Biofuels’

The European Commission has announced it will limit the amount of crop-based biofuels used in transport, but its newly proposed measures are not nearly enough to curb the disastrous impact of the EU's biofuel policy around the world. Its effects will only worsen, activists say.

Post-Arab Spring Democratic Gains at Risk, Group Warns

Almost two years after popular uprisings swept across the Middle East and North Africa, rights advocates are warning that ominous backsliding is taking place in countries across the region and beyond.

New Plans to Protect Nature

At the close of the ten-day World Conservation Congress that ran from Sept. 6-15 on the South Korean island of Jeju, members of the convening International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) agreed on an ambitious four-year action plan for protecting global natural resources.

Taking Justice to the Neighbourhoods in Argentina

The Argentine government has opened legal aid centres in slum neighbourhoods, to provide a range of services, from assistance for immigrants and victims of domestic violence to dental care services.

U.S.-Egyptian Ties Appear to Survive Crisis

While Tuesday's killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other U.S. officials in Benghazi dominated the headlines here last week, the larger concern for most foreign policy experts here was focused on neighbouring Egypt and specifically how the government of President Mohamed Morsi was dealing with anti-U.S. protests.

Q&A: Harnessing the Power of the Press to Build Peace

Conflicts of interest can be viewed as drivers of societies and human development, although recourse to violence has destroyed millions of people’s lives and leaves generations wounded for decades and even centuries.

General’s Defence on Afghan Scandal Ducks Key Evidence

Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell, the former commander of NATO’s training mission in Afghanistan, denied to a U.S. Congressional panel Wednesday that he had cited the impact on Congressional elections in opposing the timing of a request for an investigation of high-level Afghan military corruption and its impact on neglect of patients at the Afghan National Military Hospital (NMH) two years ago.

OP-ED: Women and Girls at Heart of the Blue Revolution

World Water Week recently concluded in Stockholm with a special emphasis on the linkages between water and food security.

Microfinance Brings Hope to Myanmar’s Farmers

After decades of grinding poverty under successive military dictatorships, Myanmar’s rice farmers have a chance at a better future through rural reforms ushered in by the country’s quasi-civilian government. Microfinance is at the root of it.

Gaza Economy Tailored to Fail

"Gaza's economy is expected to grow modestly and people will likely still be worse off in 2015 compared to the mid-1990s," reads a press release announcing the United Nations' August 2012 report, ‘Gaza in 2020 – A Liveable Place?’

Fresh Research on HIV Urges New Approach to Gay Men

Unlike the flattening or even declining rates of HIV infection among nearly all other communities, the epidemic among gay men globally is rapidly expanding.

Auntie Hillary Visits Cook Islands Hoping to Put China on Sidelines

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was greeted as celebrity-royalty by Cook Islanders during an unprecedented visit at the end of last week to attend a regional meeting of Pacific island nations here.

Forcing South Sudan’s Idle Youth into Farming

Police in South Sudan have begun press-ganging every "idle" youth they can find to provide labour on police farms. The State Police Commissioner in Northern Bahr al Gazal state says young men cannot be left to drink tea and play cards all day while food insecurity threatens the country.

Women Take up Care of Tohoku Elders

Yumiko Yonekura, who survived last year’s massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated Tohoku in northeast Japan, has just launched ‘Hot Care Kesenuma’, a welfare company that provides special care for feeble elders in the affected region.

Men and Women Farming Together Can Eradicate Hunger

Three years ago, the residents of the semi-arid Yatta district in Kenya’s Eastern Province lived on food aid due to dwindling crops of maize that could not thrive because of the decreased rainfall in the area. That was until a local bishop, trying to find ways to prevent mothers from forcing their teenage daughters into prostitution, changed everything.

OP-ED: Radical Salafis Overrunning the Syrian Revolution

The recent visit by Abd al-Halim Murad, head of the Bahraini Salafi al-Asalah movement, to Syria to meet with Syrian rebels is an attempt by him and other Gulf Salafis to hijack the Syrian revolution.

Intervention in Eastern Congo a Rising Priority for Activists

As the situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to deteriorate in the wake of an armed rebellion that began in April, some activists have strengthened calls for foreign military intervention.

Palestinians Find Refuge Across the Atlantic

Issam Ali Hassan spent more than four years in an isolated desert camp in Jordan before he was taken in by Brazil. The son of Palestinians had been living as a refugee in Baghdad when he had to escape after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.