TerraViva Europe Archives

Robin Hood Activists Take Aim at Wall Street

Five years after the 2008 world financial crisis and two years after the Occupy movement it triggered, U.S. critics of the financial sector are coalescing around the idea of a Robin Hood Tax on financial transactions.

It’s Afghanistan Again in a Turkish Town

By Karlos Zurutuza

People run back home at dusk, just when the shooting intensifies. To Sha Mehmed the experience is familiar. He was 11 when he left his native Afghan village to settle in this small Turkish town on the border with Syria.

Cuban Athletes Score against Violence

By Ivet González

It is unusual to see Cuban sports legends in public service announcements. However, a handful of champions and rising young stars are wearing messages or appearing in TV spots against violence among men or toward women.

Q&A: Faith Groups as Partners in Development

By Thalif Deen

The United Nations is considered one of the world's most secular institutions, with 193 member states representing peoples of different faiths and cultures and professing religious and agnostic beliefs.

Headed Somewhere in Europe, Somehow

By Apostolis Fotiadis

While the relentless war in Syria continuously adds to the number of refugees travelling west to Europe, Greece is fast becoming a nation they are choosing to avoid.

U.S. Urged to Curb Militarisation in Latin America

By Jim Lobe

The United States needs to phase down its drug war and tighten the reins on its cooperation with local militaries and police in Latin America, according to a new report released here Wednesday by three influential think tanks.

Homosexuals Cornered in Russia

By Pavol Stracansky

“It's okay to be gay in Russia if you live in a big city such as St. Petersburg or Moscow, study at university or work at a liberal company, but even here you can't feel absolutely safe,” says Nikita Mironov, describing the climate of fear that many homosexuals face in Russia.

United Nations Still Popular in Most Countries

By Jim Lobe

On the eve of the 68^th session of the United Nations General Assembly, a newly released survey of 39 countries shows that the world body remains relatively popular around the globe.

Climate Change Threatens Crop Yields in Brazil

By Fabiana Frayssinet

Crop yields in Brazil, an agricultural powerhouse, are set to decline as a result of climate change, according to the most complete diagnosis yet of climate trends in this country.

The Emerging Economies and the G20 Summit at St. Petersburg

By Shyam Saran

The eighth G20 Summit convened in St. Petersburg on Sept. 5-6, 2013 was dominated by the Syrian crisis, deflecting attention from the mandate of the gathering to serve as the premier forum for international economic coordination.

Forest Communities Draw a REDD Line

By Amy Fallon

As the ink dries on a 3.6 million dollar agreement between Uganda and the World Bank to support the country's preparations for REDD, some analysts are pessimistic over the mechanism's potential.

Street Power Takes On Gold

By Claudia Ciobanu

Street protests are snowballing in Romania against a Canadian-led gold mining project in the Rosia Montana area in the Apuseni Mountains. More than 20,000 people joined a protest march in Bucharest on Sunday, and thousands in other Romanian cities took to the streets.

Proposed Global Accord Called a Disaster for Public Services

By Carey L. Biron

Nearly 350 international civil society organisations are urging countries taking part in new negotiations towards an agreement on “trade in services” to abandon the effort, warning that the accord would negatively impact on universal access to and national regulation of public services.

Seeds of Conflict Sprout in the Balkans

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic

This year, summer in the Balkans has been nice and warm, leaving behind a land of plenty, and enough food on the table. Except that people are talking about tomatoes “that don’t taste as they used to,” watermelons that are too watery, cabbages that are hard to slice through and onions that do not sting your eyes.

Scarcity Reveals an Inaccessible Excess

By Miriam Gathigah

For decades Zakayo Ekeno has walked Turkana County’s arid land, herding his livestock, and his father’s before that. Yet nothing about the persistently drought-stricken land in northern Kenya could have given him an indication of the wealth beneath it.

U.S. Public-Elite Disconnect Emerges Over Syria

By Walter García and Jim Lobe

While much of the foreign policy elite here sees the tide of public opposition to U.S. air strikes against Syria that swept over Washington during the past two weeks as evidence of a growing isolationism, veteran pollsters and other analysts say other factors were more relevant.

Dutch Apologise for Indonesian Executions

By AJ Correspondents

The Dutch government has formally apologised for the mass killing of Indonesians during colonial occupation which ended in 1949.

Europe Failing Syrian Refugees

By Ray Smith

Refugee rights organisations are demanding an EU-wide temporary protection regime for Syrian refugees. The announcement by some countries that they can take a few thousand refugees is not enough, the groups say.

Mixed Reactions to Obama’s Embrace of Russian Deal

By Jim Lobe

President Barack Obama’s decision to put off a vote by Congress on the use of military force against Syria in order to pursue a Russian proposal to place Damascus’ chemical-weapons arsenal under international control has evoked both cheers and jeers from across the political spectrum here Wednesday.

Preoccupied with Syria, U.S. Still Saddled with Egypt

By Thalif Deen

The United States, which is preoccupied with the ongoing political and military developments in Syria, is still saddled with an unresolved problem elsewhere in the Middle East: the military takeover of Egypt's first democratically-elected government.