Egypt Marks a Spring for Islamists

Egyptians are deeply divided and the majority are dissatisfied with the performance of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, but also have little confidence in the main opposition figures or their future, a new poll has found.

Cancelling Fare Hike Fails to Quell Brazil Protests

Children of a generation that fought for basic rights like having enough to eat, learning to read and being treated in safer hospitals, the over 300,000 students protesting on the streets of Brazil want more from a democratic and economic system that no longer represents them and is beginning to show its limitations.

Arab Americans Aim at Preserving New York’s Little Syria

A brick red, six-story tenement house, St. George Melkite Church and a community house in desperate need of repair are nearly all that remain of a once thriving Arab-American community in downtown New York City.

U.S., EU Urged to Press Harder for Reform in Bahrain

Human rights groups here are calling for the United States and the European Union (EU) to exert more pressure on Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, to seriously engage its opposition and end its repression of its majority Shi'a population.

Cambodia’s Opposition Fights Back

The violence that defined Cambodia during the years of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979) may have been relegated to the realm of history, but the actions of the ruling party ahead of the Jul. 28 election smack of the dirty politics that once ruled this Southeast Asian country.

Swiss Doorways to Refugees Narrow

Once more, Swiss voters have lashed out against asylum seekers, further tightening the country's already strict asylum law. The government has meanwhile announced a radical restructuring of the asylum procedure.

Resurgence of Indigenous Identity in the Crossfire in Brazil

The powerful tractors and other farm machinery that landowners recently used to block roads at a dozen points from north to south in Brazil illustrated the economic clout of big agriculture, which rose up against the demarcation of indigenous reserves.

Estonia Not on the Refugee Way

For asylum seekers, Estonia is the least attractive country in the European Union, so the numbers say. According to Eurostat only 75 people last year asked for protection in this country that borders Russia and Finland. Local human rights activists suspect that many of those in need for help are turned down at the border without getting a chance to ask for asylum.

Rural Mexican Communities Protest Wind Farms

"We can't sow our fields, which they have rented for next to nothing. What good do we get out of it?" Guadalupe Ramírez complained about wind farms operating in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Redoubling Efforts Against Racism in Cuba

Jokes, songs, crude gestures and epithets that degrade people of African descent are still common in Cuba, despite the fact that the constitution prohibits discrimination based on skin colour, and in spite of more recent political measures, activists say.

Corruption Eats Into India’s Food Distribution System

As India’s Parliament prepares to pass a bill to provide heavily subsidised food to 810 million people, there are misgivings over its implementation through a notoriously corrupt public distribution system (PDS).

Group Highlights Broken Families in Anti-Deportation Protest

As the debate on immigration reform continues in the Senate and fractured talks persist about the future of 11 million undocumented migrants, one New York-based group took to the streets to ask their senator a question.

Small Ponds Bring Bumper Harvests

“I would never have believed it possible to get a bumper rice harvest during the drought season,” 43-year-old Mohammad Shajahan Ali, a farmer hailing from the village of Magtapur in Bangladesh’s northern Chapainawabganj district, told IPS.

Iranians Vote for Hope and a Change of Course

Iran's Jun. 14 presidential election results, announced the day after voting was held, were nothing less than a political earthquake.

Award Spotlights Indian Women Helping Women

Jassiben, a self-employed potter from Nana Shahpur village in western India, loves summer despite the heat waves and frequent power cuts, because summer days always mean great business.

Legal Pressure Increases on Unpaid Internships in U.S.

A landmark court decision this week has challenged the controversial existence of unpaid internships, highlighting calls for greater clarity on the legal definition of an internship.

Outrage Over Safety Issues at Indian Nuke Plant

The Tirunelveli district in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu may seem idyllic, dotted with lush green fields, but upon closer inspection one sees signs of a battle that does not appear to be abating.

TerraViva Comes to FAO

Dear Reader: TerraViva, a special publication of the IPS news agency, the leader in coverage of development issues, civil society and the emerging South, is once again circulating, this time in the meeting rooms and hallways of the FAO building.

Former War Zone Craves Democracy

For the first time since Sri Lanka’s 30-year-long civil conflict drew to a bloody finish in May 2009, casting an eerie hush over the Northern Province that had grown accustomed to the sounds of war, there is a buzz in the air generated by the prospect of provincial elections that hold the promise of radical change.

The “Secret Treasure” of Food Waste

Twenty-nine-year-old Andrzej W. and his partner lived for almost a year off of food found in the trash bin of the upscale supermarket Piotr i Pawel in Muranow, a neighbourhood near the centre of the Polish capital Warsaw. And they ate in style.

India Goes Bananas Over GM Crops

India’s environmental and food security activists who have so far succeeded in stalling attempts to introduce genetically modified (GM) food crops into this largely farming country now find themselves up against a bill in parliament that could criminalise such opposition.