LIBYA: Where Resistance to Gaddafi Runs High

Recent victories in Libya’s western mountains have led to a brief reprieve from violence and local fighters and civilians are slowly trying to piece their lives back together.

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.

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.

PAKISTAN: Tourism Takes On Taliban

Standing in the busy main market place of Mingora, it is hard to think that just two years ago this city in Swat district was under the tyranny of the Taliban.

Between Libya and the Deep Sea

NATO’s five-month bombing campaign in Libya, run under the guise of protecting civilians, is also killing victims fleeing the conflict, directly and indirectly.

TURKEY: Resignations Herald the Demilitarisation of Politics

The simultaneous resignations of Turkey's top military brass last week indicates that the civilian government may finally have more sway over politics than the top generals, according to analysts and activists.

RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Recovery of Disappeared’s Body Raises Hopes

The details would have done credit to the plot of a spy thriller, except they are chillingly real.

Palestinian Bedouin a Besieged Minority of the Minority

Israeli policies are destroying the livelihoods of Bedouin communities in the occupied West Bank and the Negev in southern Israel, activists and aid workers warn.

Economic Development Leaving Millions Behind

The Society for International Development (SID)'s triennial World Congress, which concluded Sunday in Washington, drew over 1,000 attendees this year, 40 percent hailing from the global south, making it arguably one of the most influential and far-reaching forums for development experts and organisations in the world today.

Data Shows All of Earth’s Systems in Rapid Decline

Protecting bits of nature here and there will not prevent humanity from losing our life support system. Even if areas dedicated to conserving plants, animals, and other species that provide Earth's life support system increased tenfold, it would not be enough without dealing with the big issues of the 21st century: population, overconsumption and inefficient resource use.

ZIMBABWE: Bleak Future for Second-Hand Clothes Traders

It is becoming increasingly difficult for second-hand clothes traders like Susanne Jabavu to do business because of rising costs to import bales of clothing from neighbouring countries.

Wealthy Pakistanis Leaving Taliban Areas

Wealthy Pakistanis from the country’s northwestern region are leaving their hometowns permanently to settle in safer areas far from the war zone. Doctors and other professionals are joining the exodus.

PAKISTAN: After the Flood, Green Homes

Subhan Khatoon’s brand new home is nothing like the one that got washed away, along with all her worldly goods, in the 2010 monsoon floods that submerged a fifth of Pakistan and left 2,000 people dead.

U.S.: Key Committee Slashes Foreign Aid, Warns Palestinians

Amidst growing fears of a new fiscal crisis sparked by a possible U.S. debt default next week, a key Republican-led Congressional committee Wednesday approved deep cuts in foreign aid and contributions to the United Nations and other multilateral institutions next year.

CENTRAL AMERICA: Families Downsizing

María José Aceituno, who works at a public relations firm in the Guatemalan capital, has two children and says she is not having any more, in order to safeguard the financial position and security of her family. "I would rather have two happy children than 10 who are dissatisfied," she said.

North Atlantic Alliance of Neo-Fascists

The Norwegian right wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed at least 76 people in two terrorist attacks Jul. 22 Oslo and Utoya, is a member of a network of more than 10,000 neo-fascist groups spread across North America and Western and Northern Europe.

TUNISIA: Migrants Flee to New Traps

As African Union and NATO leaders push for a political solution to the Libyan crisis, many of the thousands of refugees and migrants stranded on the Libyan- Tunisian border say their plight continues to fall on deaf ears.

SWAZILAND: Irrigation Waters the Hopes of a New Village

A transboundary water project is reinforcing the fight against food insecurity and poverty along the Komati River which flows through South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique.

U.N. Puts Spotlight on Youth in Tough Global Climate

Government leaders, U.N. officials and representatives from over 400 hundred youth organisations concluded two days of talks Tuesday on such issues as the importance of youth in eradicating poverty and how to stabilise the global economic system in the face of myriad challenges.

In Sri Lanka Democracy Rides on Wheels

If voters in this remote village, deep inside Sri Lanka’s former war zone, turned out in strength for the historical Jul. 23 local body elections, it had to do with the availability of buses to ferry them to the nearest polling station 20 km away.

Negative Stereotypes Persist Between West and Muslims

Westerners and Muslims continue to hold negative stereotypes of each other, although views of Muslims in the West appear to have improved marginally over the past five years, according to a new survey released here by the Pew Global Attitudes Project Thursday.