500,000 Pregnant Women at Risk in Pakistan Floods

Aid groups and U.N. agencies are raising the alarm over the vulnerability of pregnant women and babies in flood ravaged Pakistan.

INDIA: Kashmiri Youngsters Wage Online Struggle

Rasik Rasheed’s (not his real name) hefty Internet bills hardly bother his family. Cooped up at home due to curfews and strikes here for nearly three months now, youngsters like him have been busy not just with their studies but with waging what they call the Kashmir struggle on the Internet.

JAPAN: Househusbands Giving Birth To More Gender Equality

Since their first child was born 16 years ago, Hiroyuki Ozaki has taken care of the household, relinquishing his traditional role as the main breadwinner while his wife held on to her career in the travel industry.

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Mob Brutality Raises Painful Questions

A breakdown in Pakistan’s justice system, a sign of a society desensitised to violence, an example of mob brutality.

Climate-related Security Predictions Coming True in Pakistan

Analysts have been warning for several years that the impacts of climate change directly relate to the national security of the U.S. and other countries, but the link has never been so clear as it is today in northwest Pakistan.

RIGHTS-BAHRAIN: Law on Young Offenders Needs Fixing – Critics

It was his second time to be caught stealing a car, so Turki was meted a jail term of five years. But the young repeat offender was only 17 years old at the time of his arrest, and therefore was still considered a minor under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

ECONOMY: “Sub-Saharan Africa Is Speeding Towards Affluence”

Africa is heading towards a bright economic future, according to a new book co-authored by the former director of the French state agency for economic cooperation and released recently in Paris.

THAILAND: Sweeping Support Sought for Domestic Workers’ Rights

"My male employer was a womaniser and he liked to touch me and told me not to tell his wife. I felt so uncomfortable," says Chompoo, who was just 15 years old when she served – and suffered abuse – as a domestic worker here in the Thai capital.

Pakistani Officials Seek Funds, Debt Relief in Washington

Pakistani officials continued their quest for help in light of the floods that have affected 20 million people in their country by meeting with officials at the International Monetary Fund here Monday.

RIGHTS-CHINA: Doubts Simmer Around New Labour Rules

Faced with strikes in recent months, China’s southern Guangdong province is crafting revisions to labour regulations that would allow workers to negotiate pay increases and elect representatives to bargain on their behalf.

INDIA: Cotton Farmers Reap Hope from New Techniques

Meruga Padma, 33, and her husband Veeramallu, 40, can still remember when cotton farmers here in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh were in such dire straits that many were soon thrown into depression. Some of the farmers, in fact, were eventually driven to taking their own lives.

Brazil Aims for World’s “Most Perfect” Population Census

Come Dec. 31, about 68 countries are expected to complete the arduous task of taking an accurate head count of the number of people living within their geographical borders.

PAKISTAN: Schools Cross Extremism Out Of Textbooks

Turn schools into hate-free zones, and achieving peace in violence-wracked Pakistan may not be far behind.

U.N. Steps Up Pressure to Raise Funds for Pakistan

The U.N. General Assembly met Thursday to express the world community's solidarity with the people of Pakistan and to urge member states to step up their aid commitment to the flood stricken country.

POLITICS-INDIA: In Kashmir, Tensions Put Life on Hold

The doctors at the hospital that Khalida Begum’s husband brought her to in the frontier district of Kupwara knew she was in a dangerous state. They thus recommended that she be transferred soonest to the maternity hospital here in Srinagar, where she was sure to receive far better care.

Need and Risks Never Higher for Humanitarian Work

The United Nations and other relief organisations will observe World Humanitarian Day Thursday amid steadily increasing attacks on aid workers.

MIDEAST: Uprooted Villagers Hold Fast During Ramadan

On the eve of the start of Ramadan last week, Israeli police demolished the Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert. It was the third time within two weeks that the village had been razed.

INDIA: Moving On to a ‘Backward’ Step

Strident voices are rising against the Indian coalition government's move to identify people by their caste background in the ongoing census.

RIGHTS-JAPAN: Not All Working Women Are Equal

Fifty-one year old Miharu juggles two part-time jobs at a law firm and at a design company, but is barely able to make ends meet in one of the world’s richest economies.

Niger Facing Growing Food Crisis

In April, the United Nations World Food Programme estimated it would need 190 million dollars to respond to a food crisis threatening more than 7 million people in Niger. By July, the WFP had revised the amount needed upwards to $371 million: a month later, the U.N. agency has been forced to scale back aid for lack of funds.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Despite Laws and Campaigns, Child Marriages Persist

Soon after she had her second child, Rathna fell into a frenzied state and had to be brought to a hospital here in the southern Indian village of Dharmapuri. After a month-long series of tests, doctors issued their diagnosis: Rathna, they said, was suffering from a psychiatric aberration that seems to occur often among adolescent mothers.