Watchdog Body Will Oversee Private Military Contractors

Member governments, security companies and civil society organisations on Thursday formally created the first international body to be tasked with the monitoring and oversight of private military contractors’ adherence to human rights standards and international law.

Greek State Workers Rally Against Job Cuts

Thousands of civil servants have marched through the Greek capital, Athens, and the second largest city, Thessaloniki, amid a two-day nationwide strike against planned job cuts.

Ghana’s Growing Economy Fails to Create Jobs

Ghana’s economy registered 7.1 percent growth last year but 23-year-old Jennifer Esi Avemee has had difficulty securing a permanent job since graduating in 2011. “It's very stressful,” she laments. “It's very hard to sustain yourself.”

U.S. to Require Disclosure of Worker-to-CEO Pay Gap

Regulators here are proposing that most U.S. corporations be required to provide annual public reporting on how the pay received by their chief executive compares to that of their average workers, a requirement proponents say could be a first step in reining in an unprecedented swelling in executive compensation.

Uzbekistan to Allow Cotton Harvest Monitoring

Giving in to sustained international pressure, authoritarian Uzbekistan is opening up its cotton fields to international monitors this fall.

Despite Recession, Global Migration on the Rise

New international migration figures released by the United Nations Wednesday show that more people than ever are living abroad. Around 232 million of the global population of seven billion are considered international migrants, simply defined as persons living outside their country of birth.

Egyptian Workers Rising Again After the Uprising

It was the Egyptian state’s brutal restrictions on worker freedoms that transformed Kareem El-Beheiry from a disengaged lay worker into a tenacious labour activist.

Domestic Workers Emerge from the Shadows

An international convention enters into effect on Thursday that could eventually extend labour rights to as many as 100 million domestic workers across the globe, a constituency that has historically been bypassed by national laws.

Nationwide Protests Rage against Colombia’s Economic Policies

A strike declared nearly two weeks ago in Colombia by farmers and joined later by truck drivers, health workers, miners and students spread to include protests in the cities before mushrooming into a general strike Thursday, demanding changes in the government’s economic policies.

Low-Wage Strikers Across U.S. Demand Pay Increase

Workers at fast-food restaurants in 60 cities across the United States went on a one-day strike Thursday, the largest action yet in a strengthening year-long push for higher wages and the opportunity to form unions without retaliation.

U.S. Executives’ Pay on “Inexorable Upward Climb”

Three years after the passage of landmark legislation aimed at strengthening regulation of major U.S. companies, one of the most criticised disparities characterising today's corporate culture – the outsized compensation offered to top executives – continues to grow.

GM Seeks New Pastures in Pakistan

After a string of setbacks in India in recent years, the genetically modified seed industry is now targeting Pakistan as its next frontier, say activists.

U.S. Major Holdout on Landmark Maritime Labour Convention

A landmark international agreement on labour standards for seafarers came into effect this week, marking the first comprehensive international effort aimed at ensuring safe and decent working conditions for the world’s 1.5 million-plus maritime labourers.

Hard to Stay, Harder to Return

After working in Thailand legally for four years, many Myanmar migrant workers are facing an uncertain future in the coming weeks as their visas expire. Tired of the lack of security, they want the Myanmar government to improve the current labour agreement with Thailand.

Sustainable Technologies Safeguard the Soil in Cuba

The furrows are hard to make out in fields of the Finca de Semillas, a farm on Havana’s outskirts, because its administrators, Esmilda Sánchez and Raúl Aguilar, protect every centimetre of soil with mulch.

Ecological Cuban Recipes Boost Sustainable Agriculture

Vilda Figueroa and her husband, José Lama, live in Marianao on the outskirts of Havana, where they share hundreds of recipes based on Cuban-grown foods and sun-drying, along with other ecological food preservation methods.

Protests in Portugal Going Grey

The elderly have taken to the streets in Portugal to protest drastic public sector pension cuts announced this week by the government of conservative Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.

One Recipe for the Homeless

Following the death of his parents when he was just four, Samlain Chey, now 22, found himself living on the streets along the river near the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. Until he met a social worker from Mith Samlanh.

Kashmiri Farmers Unprepared for Drought

Zareena Bano has had to skip school 17 times this year to help out on her family’s farm in Tangchekh village in the northern Indian state of Kashmir.

Building the Future Enterprise by Enterprise in Rural Peru

Women and young people are central players in dozens of small businesses and environmental protection plans that are changing the lives of poor rural families in the Andes highlands of southern Peru.

Mongolia Wrestles with Dutch Disease Dilemma

Ochir Damchaa chuckles as he drives his second-hand Toyota sedan through the alleyways of Nalaikh, a ramshackle town 35 kilometres east of Ulaanbaatar: “There’re just two kinds of jobs here: drive a taxi, or dig coal.”