Q&A: World Needs a Plan for Expected Waves of Climate Refugees

Untold thousands dead and thousands more stranded or missing - these are the latest figures from various reports on the devastation caused by flash floods in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

Fleeing with What’s Most Important

If you were forced to flee your home to survive, what would you take? What could you take? Jean Claude “Van Damme” Ndongizimana, 20, escaped from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo with just the bag in which he kept his profits from selling milk and the clothes on his back.

Angola Slow on Drought Response as People Die of Hunger

Church groups, local NGOs and international aid organisations have launched appeals to get supplies to drought-stricken southern Angola where people are reported to be dying from a lack of food and water. It is estimated that between half a million and 800,000 people have been affected.

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.

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.

Highest Number of Refugees in Two Decades

Yves Norodom, a 21-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo living in Brazil, is one of 45.2 million displaced people around the world – the largest number in 20 years.

Reconstruction of Haiti Slum to Cost Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

Three years after its star-studded launch by President René Préval, actor Sean Penn and other Haitian and foreign dignitaries, the model “Corail-Cesselesse” camp for Haiti's 2010 earthquake victims has helped give birth to what might become the country's most expansive – and most expensive – slum.

Haiti’s Earthquake Victims Try to Survive at Camp Corail

Despite the unforgiving sun and its sweltering heat, Joel Monfiston is working, hammering a piece of worn plywood, watering flowers and picking the weeds out from between rocks and pebbles.

Kurds Advance, Into the Unknown

A ban on political and even social gatherings, a bar on Kurdish language and culture; uprooting people, forced disappearances and a ‘caste’ of hundreds of thousands of local Kurds deprived of citizenship... life for Kurds in pre-war Syria was probably as dire as it is today for their kin in Iran.

Corruption Eats Into India’s Food Distribution System

As India’s Parliament prepares to pass a bill to provide heavily subsidised food to 810 million people, there are misgivings over its implementation through a notoriously corrupt public distribution system (PDS).

EUROPE: Floods Are Here to Stay

Record floods in Central and Eastern Europe have highlighted some of the challenges of climate change for the continent, as well as the floods' potential to spur populist politics.

Argentina’s Rail Tragedy Shows Changes Coming Too Slowly

The latest railway tragedy in the Argentine capital, the third in less than two years on the same commuter line, brought to light the severe limitations of a hybrid public-private system, despite the changes underway.

Reforming U.S. Food Aid Would Eliminate 7,000-Mile Food Chain

Lawmakers attempted Wednesday to push along an ongoing effort to modernise U.S. international food aid policy amid mounting bipartisan support for the use of more locally grown food products over the long-standing practise of shipping U.S.-grown commodities.

OP-ED: Are We at the Tipping Point for Ending Hunger and Malnutrition?

Author Malcolm Gladwell draws on the science of epidemiology in his book "The Tipping Point" to explain how ideas spread through a population, in the same way as an infectious disease can proceed from a few cases to a full-blown pandemic.

Cuba Kicks Off Cyclone Season with ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Rains

The new cyclone season in Cuba is forecast to be highly active, and it announced its arrival with intense rains that caused rivers to burst their banks and flooded extensive areas in the western province of Pinar del Río.

Q&A: “The U.N. Is Too Slow to Respond to Crisis”

As the situation in Myanmar deteriorates, thousands of Rohingyas have fled the country in search of a safe haven.

U.S. Syria Hawks Can’t Get No Traction

With Syrian government forces and their allies scoring a major victory over Western- and Gulf Arab-backed rebel forces this week, neo-conservatives and other anti-Damascus hawks are trying hard to turn up the pressure on President Barack Obama to sharply escalate U.S. support for the opposition.

“Syria Peace Meeting Will Not Happen in June”: UN Envoy

A conference on ending the fighting in Syria will not happen in June, as planned, because both sides in the conflict are unprepared to attend, the U.N.'s international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said.

In Besieged Refugee Camp, Syrian Medics Struggle to Provide

It was nine in the morning when the shell landed in front of nine-year-old Hella al-Abtah's house in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. Hella survived the initial blast but was critically wounded in the head, and her father rushed her to the Palestine Hospital, blood pouring from the laceration.

Despite Peace Talks, Forced Displacement Still Climbing in Colombia

Drugs and arms traffickers are muscling in on Colombia's Pacific coastal region, forcibly displacing local people, according to a new report by the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES).

Historic Arms Trade Treaty Signed at U.N.

The United Nations witnessed a historic moment Monday with the signing of the Arms Trade Treaty, first adopted in April by the General Assembly, and the first time the 85-billion-dollar international arms trade has been regulated by a global set of standards.