Cuba Bumped from Human Development Index over Missing Data

When the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) formulates its annual Human Development Index (HDI), it uses several socioeconomic indicators - including life expectancy, gross national income and literacy - to rank member states and also measure quality of life in these countries.

U.N. Fears Escalating Ethnic Clashes in Cote d’Ivoire

United Nations officials said they were "gravely concerned" Wednesday that the current political deadlock over recent presidential elections in Cote d'Ivoire could ultimately lead to genocide, as both sides of the conflict consolidated their forces.

MIDEAST: Oasis of Peace Blossoms, To An Extent

"Once upon a time," the educator tells Jewish and Arab five-year-old children, "a plant laid dormant, holding its life on the darkness around it, beholding the night. Butterflies, flowers and leaves, their caress, were laid to rest. Dewdrop beads, tears in an ocean of hopelessness, enchanted the plant that grew and grew into a strong tree, into an oasis of peace in a land of conflict", into a community of two peoples, Jews and Palestinians.

Greybeards Urge U.S. not to Veto U.N. Anti-Settlement Resolution

Some four dozen former top U.S. diplomats and prominent policy analysts are urging President Barack Obama not to veto a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution that is expected to reaffirm the illegality of Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Billion-dollar Boeing Fence on U.S.-Mexico Border Canceled

One billion dollars and just over four years after Boeing won a contract to build a "virtual fence" on the Arizona-Mexico border, the high-tech project was canceled last week by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) amid widespread recognition that it has been a failure.

SWAZILAND: Free Primary Education – If You Can Afford It

The new school year opened with hope - and hunger - in Swaziland this week: an estimated 140,000 orphans and vulnerable children are among the small, eager faces in the mountain kingdom's classrooms. Poverty and the AIDS pandemic threaten to make an early mark on the next generation.

EAST EUROPE: Midwives Struggle to Deliver Home Births

Women’s rights in Eastern Europe have been put into the spotlight as a Hungarian midwife faces five years in prison for assisting with home births.

Food Worries Rise in China

In China, a country with a history of famine and where rural dwellers still use the greeting "have you eaten?", food is close to sacred. Feeding the country’s massive population remains one of the biggest threats to future economic growth and social stability, experts warn.

INDIA: Alcoholism Grips Progressive Kerala

The scene outside a temple in Kannur district in Kerala recently was something unusual in modern India. Sitting on one side of a balance scale hanging in front of the Kannadipara Muthappan Temple was a woman, and on the other side, a bucket of coconut wine.

Pressure Builds to End Stalemate in Cote d’Ivoire

Ten days before the two-month deadline for a negotiated solution to Cote d'Ivoire's presidential deadlock comes due, pressure is mounting to end the stalemate in Abidjan, as observers pin the outcome of the power struggle on the future of the region as a whole.

HAITI: Baby Doc’s Warm Welcome Turns Frigid

Human rights groups are urging Haitian authorities to seize the opportunity of former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier's surprise return to the country Sunday to prosecute him for the atrocities committed during his 15-year reign.

CENTRAL AMERICA: “Mutating” Gangs Sow Terror

"I'm really scared for my four kids, who take the bus to school," said an anguished Alma Valenzuela after a youth gang attacked a passenger bus in the Guatemalan capital, killing nine people, including three children.

More Arabs Protest Rulers With Self-Immolations

Mohammed Bouazizi, the 26-year old Tunisian whose act of self-immolation led to an unprecedented popular revolution in Tunisia, is quickly turning into a symbol for disgruntled Arab youths angry at their autocratic rulers and poor economic conditions - a development that Arab leaders in the region are clearly taking note of.

Malawi Missing Its Local Government

An hour and fifteen minutes each day: Melina Kalunga has plenty of time to measure how long it takes to resolve a legal battle over Malawi's Electoral Commission.

Malnutrition Has an Indigenous Face in Peru

Indigenous children under five in Peru's highlands regions still bear the brunt of chronic malnutrition, even though local authorities in those areas received millions of dollars worth of taxes between 2006 and 2010 from the mining companies operating there.

Arab Regimes Fear Bread Intifadah

"Break my heart but don’t come near my bread," goes an old Arabic proverb. Failure to observe it has often come at a high political price.

JAPAN: Call for Nuclear-Free Zone

Defusing the North Korean crisis can be achieved with a bolder military alliance, say Japan, South Korea and the United States. But peace proponents beg to differ, arguing that inclusion and engagement with the Stalinist state and its ally China is the only way to build trust and lay the foundation for stability at long last in East Asia.

Q&A: A Portrait of Iran’s Shah, in Shades of Grey

In "The Shah", a prominent Iranian author and scholar at Stanford University in the United States offers new insights into Iran's modern history, including the 1953 coup, the revolution a quarter century later, and the current repressive political situation.

Cuba Calls Easing of US Restrictions “Limited” Move

The Cuban government welcomed the latest U.S. measures to ease restrictions on travel and remittances to this country, but said they had a "limited reach."

MIDEAST: Latin America Deepens Israeli Isolation

Guyana became Thursday the seventh Latin American state to recognise an independent Palestinian state. Although the official recognitions are largely nominal, they have irked the State of Israel as they expose its growing diplomatic isolation in the face of the current peace deadlock.

ENVIRONMENT: Delhi Chokes on Winter Smog

Winter in the Indian capital is a season of mists, minus the mellow fruitfulness. The air becomes charged with toxic emissions and particles that cannot disperse due to a meteorological phenomenon called "atmospheric inversion".