Funding Lags to Aid Pakistan’s Millions of Displaced

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon returned from Pakistan Monday calling the floods there the worst disaster he has ever witnessed and urging the world community to speed up assistance to the Pakistani people.

U.N. Targets “Lost Generation”

Even as the U.N. launched the International Year of Youth last week, one of its agencies was warning of a "lost generation" of disillusioned young workers who are unable to find decent jobs.

U.N. Decade Hopes to Push Back Encroaching Deserts

Desertification has long been recognised as a major environmental, economic and social problem for countries the world over. But despite major efforts, which started with the United Nations Conference on Desertification (UNOCD) in 1977, the process of land degradation is intensifying.

ENVIRONMENT: Climate Change Debate Rises with Pakistan Floods

"If this is not God’s wrath, what is?" 40-year-old taxi driver Bakht Zada said of the massive floods in Pakistan that have swept away his life earnings.

HEALTH-INDIA: Infant Units Go A Long Way in Saving Babies

Banita’s heart sank when she first saw her prematurely born twin girls. One weighed 500 grammes and the other 700 grammes, both way below the 2.5-kilogramme benchmark for low-birthweight newborns. But their clenched, coin-sized fists seemed to show they were clinging to life. "There is hope," said the local doctor.

PHILIPPINES: Despite Ad Ban, Tobacco Industry Seduces Customers

Adventure motorcycle tours, and driving and racing events organised by tobacco firms. Canopies bearing cigarette brands in popular restaurants. Tobacco brands appearing beside the signages of convenience stores, whether along the Philippine capital’s urban alleys or provincial roads.

460 Million Dollars Sought for Pakistan Flood Relief

With an estimated 14 to 16 million people affected by what the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) calls "the worst monsoon-related floods in living memory", the U.N. launched a humanitarian flash appeal Wednesday seeking 459.7 million dollars for relief efforts in Pakistan.

MIDEAST: Homeless Take On Israeli Forces

A bruising battle of will is taking place between Israeli security forces and Palestinians recently made homeless after two Palestinian villages were razed and hundreds left homeless.

PAKISTAN: Controversial Drug Welcomed by Some, Worries Others

With its latest hotline a surefire hit, the non-government group Aware Girls could not be any happier.

Commission Takes a Hard Look at Free-for-All Migration

At 35, Daniel James has his mind set on leaving Trinidad and Tobago "for greener pastures".

SINGAPORE: Youth Games Expose Olympic-sized Cracks

Just a month after the buzz from the vuvuzelas ended at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Singapore is busy preparing to host the next major event in the world sports calendar – the Youth Olympic Games. But few seem to know, or care, about the inaugural youth version of the venerable Olympic Games.

EUROPE: Citizen Rights Don’t Apply to Roma

All major European countries plan mass expulsions of Roma or demolitions of Roma settlements. Rights groups warn that these measures entail the criminalisation of an entire ethnic group, and break EU law.

AFRICA: Lack of City Planning to Hurt More Citizens

Thousands of Kenyan urban dwellers, rich and poor, live in fear that their homes or building investments could soon be demolished as the country struggles to keep up with the rapid urbanisation of cities.

CHINA: A Parade Less, A Step Forward

Understanding that sex workers have rights too may still be some way off in China, but the government’s decision to stop police from parading them in public to humiliate them appears to reflect changing public attitudes toward those in the sex trade.

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Film Gives Women Survivors A New Take on Life

"The first film I make when I go back to my village will be about unequal wages women peasants get compared to their male counterparts," says Haseena Mallah, an unlettered farmhand in her 40s.

PAKISTAN: Flood Disaster Means Starting from Zero

"We swam the whole day to get hold of the elderly and women swept away by floodwaters," recalled 27-year-old Shahid Ali of Charsadda district, one of the areas in north-western Pakistan badly hit by devastating monsoon rains.

RIGHTS-JAPAN: Social Fallout of Atomic Bombings Hounds Survivors

With her knees shaking and her heart thudding, Toshiko Hamamako rose to address the audience. But it was more than stage fright.

SRI LANKA: No Peace in Sight in Human-vs-Elephant War

Dusk creeps over Konweva like a black shroud slowly draping over the village. The edges of its paddy fields, where the agricultural plains meet the surrounding thick shrubs, are first to be blanketed in the darkness. Already, there are signs that the night will not be peaceful.

DR CONGO: Sticks And Straw Out of Our Schools

Led by the local church, residents of Gungu administrative zone, in the southwestern Democratic Republic of Congo have used their own resources to transform the conditions in which their children study.

KENYA: Herbal Contraceptives Under the Radar

An arrow points the way from a busy street along a rough pathway; visitors clutch their bags more closely. The door is open: sachets are displayed on the table with labels indicating treatment for ulcers, diabetes, hypertension, fibroids. But not the contraceptive pill IPS is looking for.

POLITICS-INDIA: Kashmir Cauldron Boils Again

The sight of armoured vehicles and soldiers in battle gear out in Kashmir’s streets in July is a grim warning of a storm gathering yet again over the restive valley.