‘Forgotten Australians’ Demand More Than Apologies

Laurie Humphreys was on the first ship after World War II that brought 150 British boys and girls, aged five to 14 years, to Australia in 1947. At 13, he was promised oranges and sunshine and an adventurous holiday, but reality was different.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/: Burkina Faso Losing Thousands of Hectares of Forests Each Year

The Burkina Faso authorities have sounded the alarm over the increased rate of degradation of forests in this Sahelian country.

Somalia to Dadaab: The Journey from Hell

The lorry sways slowly from side to side along a dirt track as it ambles towards its place of rest. The red straw bags, clothes and empty yellow water bottles tied to the rear end of the open cargo hold tower above the pensive faces peering over colourfully painted steel panels.

INDIA: Sex Selection on the Rise Despite Stricter Law

When Sujatha’s husband learned that she had conceived just five months after they got married, he became agitated over what he called her "ill-timed pregnancy". To worsen her husband’s anxiety, a test to determine the sex of the foetus showed she was carrying a girl.

UN: Somalia Is ‘Worst Humanitarian Disaster’

The head of the United Nations refugee agency has described the situation in drought-hit Somalia as the "worst humanitarian disaster" in the world, after meeting with those affected at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.

MIDEAST: Never a Good Day for This Population

In dire need of money to assist her family back home, 27-year-old Makeda from Ethiopia was forced to return to the Middle East as a domestic worker.

World Population to Hit Seven Billion by October

The United Nations commemorates World Population Day next week against the backdrop of an upcoming landmark event: global population hitting the seven billion mark by late October this year.

Selling Nature to Save Nature, and Ourselves

Avoiding the coming catastrophic nexus of climate change, food, water and energy shortages, along with worsening poverty, requires a global technological overhaul involving investments of 1.9 trillion dollars each year for the next 40 years, said experts from the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) in Geneva Tuesday.

MIDEAST: Israel Denies Healthcare to Refugees

Medication and pillboxes fill two white bookcases, lining the wall behind a volunteer Israeli doctor. He talks to a patient in Hebrew about the man’s medical condition, as another man is examined behind a curtain that divides the small office. In the next room, at least 40 people – mainly of Eritrean and Sudanese origin – sit quietly on plastic chairs, waiting for their turn to be seen.

Real Estate Boom as Displaced Pakistanis Seek Housing

Real estate prices have shot up in areas adjacent to the tribal districts of northwest Pakistan where violence continues to displace local residents.

Poor Countries Host Vastly More Displaced People Than Wealthier Nations

The hardest part of Jan Egeland’s job is coming home at the end of the day. He is the Director of the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs and the former U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, and has travelled to the farthest reaches of the world to help protect refugees and displaced people.

Amidst ‘Dire’ Humanitarian Crisis, U.S. Urges Ceasefire in South Kordofan

As the date for South Sudan’s long anticipated Jul. 9 secession inches closer, on-going violence in the Northern state of South Kordofan threatens to destroy the country’s hopes for peace.

ITALY: ‘They Saw Numbers, We Saw People’

It’s only a few hundred metres from the rocky hillside overlooking Lampedusa’s commercial port to the other side of the protected bay. For more than a decade this narrow strip of ocean has been a migratory gateway into Europe for tens of thousands of mostly African migrants. The numbers have risen and fallen in response to shifting government policies and geopolitical developments.

ITALY: Refugees Find Easier Reception, For Now

It’s 4.30 in the morning and the full moon is low in the sky above Lampedusa harbour as the Guardia di Finanza patrol boat escorts a fishing boat containing 19 Tunisian migrants into the closed military port. They include six women, one child and – to the amusement of the Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) team - one sheep. The migrants are driven away in a coach to one of the two holding centres, some of them wrapped in silver emergency blankets. But the sheep remains in the port.

Africa Faces Explosive Population Growth

The African continent, which is projected to make significant economic gains over the next decade, is in danger of being weighed down by a dramatic explosion in population growth.

Dam Project in Turkey Breeds Controversy

The tranquillity and mystery of this town on the banks of Tigris River will not last long. The millennia-old town will be nearly totally destroyed once the nearby Ilisu dam, built for energy and irrigation, is complete.

As Britain Sees a Needy Child

The British Home Office has ruled that a severely disabled five-year-old girl should be returned to Algeria. The ruling demonstrates just how tough some European governments are getting on immigration.

Millions May Soon Be Fleeing the Floodwaters

Mass migration will inevitably be part of human adaptation to climate change, experts agree, since parts of the world will become uninhabitable in the coming decades.

Urban Transformation for Interethnic Cities

Urban centres, marked by globalisation, migration and the intermingling of culturally and ethnically diverse communities were among the major topics of the International Conference on the Inter-ethnic City held in Rome last week on the eve of the celebrations of Italy’s national day.

MIDEAST: Time Running Out for Two-State Solution

Time is of the essence if the implementation of a two-state solution to end the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to succeed. Changing demographics both within Israeli and Palestinian society could render this impossible, with a one-state solution the only feasible outcome.

U.S. Takes Action Against ‘Gendercide’

Every year on Jun. 1, the People's Republic of China pulls out all the stops – hosting festivals, printing greeting cards and sponsoring public games and parades – in celebration of International Children's Day, a holiday widely acknowledged to have originated with the rise of communism and now observed primarily in communist or former communist countries.