EUROPE: Cranes Overstay Their Welcome as Weather Grows Warmer

Migrating flocks of cranes flying overhead are normally a harbinger of spring and autumn in Europe. But due to rising temperatures, the birds are sticking around increasingly longer in the fall before heading south.

BELARUS: Fight Against Death Penalty Gets Tougher

A petition signed by 250,000 people calling for an end to capital punishment has been turned away by Belarussian authorities as the regime continues to harden its stance on the death penalty.

Brussels Summit Rejects EU-Wide Treaty Change

A bid to change the EU treaty to resolve the eurozone debt crisis has foundered at a crunch summit in Brussels, after Britain refused to sign up without major concessions in return.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Following the Carbon Footprint to the ‘Emissions Reduction’ Fallacy

According to official figures, the European Union member countries have successfully reduced their emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), especially of carbon dioxide (CO2), by more than 15 percent since 1990, thus more than fulfilling their commitments under the Kyoto protocol.

HUNGARY: ‘Unorthodoxy’ Fails, IMF Returns

A year after slamming the door on the International Monetary Fund and announcing that a small country like Hungary could pursue an independent economic policy, conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been forced to kneel to the IMF and ask for help. Was there ever an alternative?

DEVELOPMENT: In Crisis, The Rich Get Richer

Mansions on one side of the road, and slums on the other. People queuing for food rations, while others drive by in shiny Land Rovers with tinted windows.

Listening to ‘Appalled Economists’

A paper written by a handful of French economists criticising the economic policies applied in the European Union to deal with the sovereign debt crisis that followed government bailouts of banks and other financial institutions in 2007 has become a manifesto supported by many worldwide.

US-EU: Economic Crisis Threatens Global Recession, U.N. Warns

The United Nations Thursday reaffirmed a lingering fear haunting Western capitals: the world economy is teetering on the brink of another major downturn and heading towards a global economic recession.

EUROPE: Co-ops Off to a Promising Start

A small wave of consumer cooperatives is rising in Central and Eastern Europe, attempting to provide food that is locally produced and healthy, and to build conviviality.

Iran’s Growing Isolation a Dubious Win for the West

Scenes from Tehran Tuesday of bearded Iranian youth swarming over the walls of the British embassy evoked memories of the 1979-81 hostage crisis that created the image of Iran as a pariah state.

TAJIKISTAN: President Taking a Press Beating in Dushanbe

Following a diplomatic faux pas that enraged Russia, the knives seem to be out for Tajikistan's long-time president, Imomali Rahmon.

SPAIN: Self-Financed Communities “A Tool for Building Trust”

On the first Sunday of every month, Abdoulaye Fall, from Senegal, meets a group of people in Barcelona, to contribute money to a common fund or to take out a loan. This is one of 60 self-financed communities in Spain, an alternative to traditional banking systems that is having a powerful social effect.

Reclaiming a Waste Land Called Ukraine

Ukrainian authorities are launching a massive nationwide project to transform the country’s dangerous and inefficient waste disposal network as officials admit the former Soviet state is facing an "ecological catastrophe".

BALKANS: Fearing the ‘White al-Qaeda’

Mevludin Jasarevic (23) is in police custody in Sarajevo, scarcely revealing how he came to the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina and went on a shooting spree in front of the United States embassy last month.

EUROPE: Developing Nations Lose Billions to Multinational Tax Dodging

Not corruption but multinational tax dodging is the main reason why developing nations stay aid-dependent, says a new report. And while new proposals by the European Commission try to tackle the problem, they turn a blind eye towards tax havens.

ENVIRONMENT: Seeing the Trees In The Year Of Forests

When firefighters arrived to put out a blaze that was engulfing the home of Elise Inversin on the French island of Corsica, the 66-year-old grandmother told firemen to forget about her house and save a neighbouring 900-year-old Mastic tree. The house could be rebuilt, she said.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/HAITI: Waiting Five Years for a Drop of Water – Part 1

2.5 million U.S. dollars to supply water to several marginal neighbourhoods in the capital. Approved in 2006. Five years later the water has yet to run. Children are still in the streets bearing bottles and buckets.

EUROPE: Crisis Brings New Governments, Not New Politics

The change of government in five countries in Europe, brought about this year by the dramatic sovereign debt crisis that broke out in 2007 has so far failed to remove the original causes of the crisis.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Shale Gas Emerges as a Burning Issue

The issue seems rather similar to that of unconventional oil and has already sparked a major controversy in the West. But its implications for the debate on climate change are hardly known in countries of the Global South.

The Screen Speaks for Suu Kyi

Twenty years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and a year after being released from house arrest, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is the subject of a sweeping film that may increase international pressure on Burma’s ruling regime to speed up tentative reforms.

EU: Conditions Faced by Roma People – from Bad to Worse

Roma leaders are alarmed at the growing discrimination faced by their people in Europe, especially because of the anti-gypsy stance taken by many political parties, which blame the ethnic minority group for a wide range of social ills.