U.S. Cities Joining Push to Dump Fossil Fuel Investments

Nearly a dozen U.S. cities have announced their interest in withdrawing municipal investments from fossil fuel companies, joining a fast-growing movement among colleges and universities that supporters say is allowing citizens concerned with environmental degradation and global climate change to act in lieu of federal action from the U.S. Congress.

The Free Market Fundamentalists Are Now in Europe

For a long time it was a given that while Europe was based on defending a more just society, with social values and solidarity, the United States was based on the glory of individualism and competition, and anything public was considered “socialist”.

Homeschoolers Want Legal Vacuum Filled in Spain

Isabel Rodríguez decided to pull her then nine-year-old son Ulises out of the school system and homeschool him instead – an alternative chosen by more than 2,000 families in Spain, who are calling for a law that would overcome the legal vacuum surrounding the growing phenomenon.

Learn From the Children

“Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man you have seen, and ask yourself if this step you contemplate is going to be any use to him.”

Religious Youth Could Swing Pakistani Poll

From the local butcher, to the pavement fruit vendor, to the cobbler sitting beside his tools on Elphinstone Road, a busy street in the heart of Karachi, one question is on everyone’s lips: Who will win the upcoming elections on May 11?

Palestinian Expulsions Mapped in Hebrew

Fireworks went off over the Tel Aviv skyline this week as thousands of flag-waving Israelis marked the 65th anniversary of their country’s founding. At the same time, a smaller group of Israeli activists explored the other, most often ignored, side to their country’s creation: the forced displaced of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Meeting Terror With Defiance Ahead of Election

Bacha Khan Markaz, a two-storey building in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar, is abuzz with activity. Located deep in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, whose northwestern tip borders Afghanistan, the building serves as the headquarters for the Awami National Party (ANP), which is gearing up for general elections on May 11.

Q&A: ‘Empowering Girls Alone Will Not Bring Social Change’

The Global Education First Initiative stands at the forefront of this week's Learning Ministerial Meetings in Washington, D.C., underscoring the importance of education in the development of the global economy.

Pakistan Poll Campaign Advances by Degrees

Former parliamentarian Jamshed Dasti, known in his hometown of Muzaffargarh as Rescue 1122, Pakistan’s equivalent of an emergency number, is now a dubious hero. On Apr. 4, a district court served him a three-year prison sentence and a fine of 5,000 rupees (50 dollars) for presenting a fake degree to become eligible for a seat in parliament. He filed an appeal in the Lahore High Court which has overturned his conviction and acquitted him.

Give a Teenager a Camera, Watch the World Change

Today's youth are hardly passive consumers of content – they create it, endlessly updating via social media and spreading information faster than one can say “go".

Far from Home, Malian Refugees Strive to Rebuild Their Lives

Malian widow Mariama Sow, 30, and her three children are trying to find some semblance of normalcy in their lives in Dakar, Senegal, since they left the historic city of Timbuktu in northern Mali last June to escape the Islamist occupation.

Urban Youth Go Back to the Land

Down the main road in Munda, a coastal town on the North Georgia Island of the Solomon Islands, past the wharf, the market and a small collection of shops, Patrick Arathe’s farm is reached by walking first across the runway of the local airport and finally along a dirt track that winds between residential buildings until it opens into a large clearing.

These Kids Have Won Already

Oblivious to the cloud of dust they have kicked up in just a few minutes, panting and sweating, moving lithely, this way, then that, they jostle the ball smoothly until one team scores a goal.

Q&A: Leaving Youth on the Streets Creates a ‘Social Disaster’

For homeless youth, life on the streets is brutal. They experience sky-high rates of mental health problems, substance abuse and sexual assault. But despite the fact that it costs just under 6,000 U.S. dollars to permanently end homelessness for one youth, too little is being done to help them.

Children Learn Lessons of Commerce on the Streets of Zimbabwe

Susan Sithole* is 14 and should be in grade nine or Form Two, according to Zimbabwe's education system, learning her lessons in Mathematics, English and other subjects.

Universities “Not Living up to Missions” on Global Health Research

A first-time ranking of 54 top research universities in the United States and Canada has found that a miniscule percentage of funding goes to neglected diseases, despite the outsized influence that public universities play in developing medicines for illnesses often ignored by the private sector.

Motorcycle Mission Teaches Some Lessons

Mounted on a Harley Davidson, Shehzad Roy, a popular Pakistani singer, is on a mission: to expose the country’s 176 million residents to the good, the bad and the ugly side of Pakistan’s education system.

Young Computer Scientists in Cuba Short of Opportunities

Thousands of young Cubans are graduating in computer engineering, a sector the government decided to strengthen over the past decade. But their professional future is uncertain because of failures of organisation and of internet connectivity.

Q&A: Brazil’s School Meals Teach Good Eating Habits

Providing school meals for 45 million children is a remarkable achievement for Brazil. But the programme faces specific difficulties, as well as the generic problems plaguing any national plan in this vast country of more than 192 million people.

Q&A: “A Pastoralist Woman Is Like a Working Machine”

"In some communities, you can’t talk about violence against women," says Agnes Leina, executive director of Il'laramatak Community Concerns (ICC), a group that promotes the human rights of pastoralist communities in northern and southern Kenya, with a special emphasis on women and girls.

Gaza Women Suffer on ‘Their’ Day

“In Gaza we don't lead normal lives, we just cope, and adapt to our abnormal lives under siege and occupation,” says Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician and a long-time human rights and women's rights activist in the Gaza Strip. On International Women's Day, when many of the world's women are fighting for workplace equality and an end to domestic violence, Farra and the majority of Gaza's women fight for the most basic of rights.