ECONOMY: Meltdown Brings Poverty Back to East Europe

As former communist states in Eastern Europe transformed their economies from command to capitalist, over the last 20 years, economists praised the adoption of western-style economic models that created middle classes able to enjoy new levels of wealth and comfort.

EUROPE: No Qualms Funding Tax Haven-Tainted Banks

Although the links between tax evasion and global poverty are officially recognised, the European Investment Bank, the lending arm of the European Union (EU), has no qualms financing banks known to stash away money in tax havens.

Q&A: “We’re Here to Insert Some Reality into an Unreal Situation”

Bill McKibben is a U.S. writer, environmentalist and the founder of 350.org, an international climate campaign. His first book, "The End of Nature", was published in 1989 and is regarded as the first book written for a general audience about climate change.

FRANCE: Sarkozy – Unlikely Champion of Environmental Action

For a centre-right politician, best known for his law-and-order stance and tough immigration policies, French President Nicolas Sarkozy would seem an unlikely champion of environmental issues

FINLAND: Biodiesel Breakthrough or Environmental Nightmare?

As Finnish energy major Neste Oil scales up production of its ‘green’ diesel NExBTL, environmental activists fear that more land will go under palm oil plantations at the expense of Southeast Asia’s threatened rainforests.

CLIMATE CHANGE: No Closed Doors at Parallel Summit

Two blocks from the Metro station on the busy M-1 Line, the first indication that pedestrians are slipping into the space-time continuum known as the "Free City" is the ubiquitous graffiti and occasional "boom!" of small explosive devices like M-80s echoing through the cobbled streets.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Beware of Carbon Trading Trap Warn Activists

As the climate change summit in the Danish capital moves into a second day, environmental groups warn that by pushing carbon offsetting and trade, governments of developed countries are bypassing their responsibility to significantly reduce domestic emissions and provide aid to developing countries.

Q&A: ‘Economic Growth Is Making us Poorer’

Dinner one evening when he was a kid put William Rees on track to becoming a sustainability pioneer. It was after a day at work on the family farm when he was nine or 10. He saw he had had a hand in growing everything on his plate. That brought a fascination with a connection to earth that would never leave him.

Q&A: Gender Missing in Climate Agreements

Women are known to be innovators when it comes to responding to climate change. The question is how to ensure that the role of women and gender equality are reflected in climate change agreements.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Negawatts and Smart Grids

Electricity is indispensable to modern life, but its generation is responsible for 40 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming and climate change.

RIGHTS-TURKEY: Jailing Kurdish Children to Undermine Dissent

Turkey is signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, but that does not stop minors in the country's Kurdish dominated eastern and southeastern regions from ending up with stiff jail sentences.

CULTURE-IBEROAMERICA: Women MisPrized

"The judges are usually men, and they tend to prefer men's writing," Mexican journalist and novelist Elena Poniatowska, a perennial candidate for the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, said with a note of resignation in her voice.

Q&A: Africa – High On Political Empowerment, Low On Education

"It is clear that there are huge discrepancies within Sub-Saharan Africa, but overall the region is doing extremely well in terms of political empowerment," says Saadia Zahidi, head of the Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in a telephone interview from Geneva.

WESTERN SAHARA: Activist Badly Weakened by Hunger Strike

The firm stance taken by Western Sahara independence activist Aminatou Haidar, in her third week of a hunger strike in an airport in Spain's Canary Islands, contrasts with the weak position of the Spanish government vis-à-vis the Moroccan government, which it has failed to pressure to allow the activist to return to her homeland.

TRADE: U.S. Wants Its Way, But So Do Others

Three minutes to speak about the world trade situation was a little more than U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk needed to sum up his country's position on trade; after eight years of talks to thrash out a single trade deal, he needed less time than that.

ECONOMY: Neo-liberalism Preys on Nordic Welfare Systems

Nordic welfare state systems, often held up as model in the developed world, are crumbling under the assault of neo-liberal economic policies, say economic experts.

LATIN AMERICA: Summit Does Not Recognise Elections in Honduras

The hard-line stance taken by Brazil, Argentina and most other Latin American countries has clashed with U.S. efforts to push for international recognition of the elections organised Sunday by the de facto regime in power in Honduras since the Jun. 28 coup.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Angry Greenhouse Gas Victims Demand Action

‘Angry’ is not the adjective that comes to mind when you first meet Nelly Damaris Chepkoskei.

EL SALVADOR: Declassified Docs Shed Light on Jesuits’ Murders

Thousands of pages of declassified U.S. documents shedding light on the 1989 murders of six prominent Jesuit clerics, their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter in El Salvador could give a new twist to the case that opened in the Spanish courts in January.

BALKANS: Apologising to Sterilised Roma Women – Slovakia’s Turn

Rights activists are hoping a landmark announcement by the Czech government regretting forced sterilisation of Roma women in the past will push politicians in neighbouring Slovakia to follow suit.

ROMANIA: Business Crowds Out Bucharest Life

Competing with the destruction caused by former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s ‘systematisation’ plans might be hard. But an official report says that "the aggression on Bucharest’s architectural heritage, documented since 1989, exceeds Ceausescu’s acts.’’