HAITI: Do Elections Equal Reconstruction?

Posters cover almost every conceivable surface, even tombs in graveyards. Trucks mounted with loud speakers blare campaign jingles. Candidates' faces are everywhere. It's elections "à la américaine", complete with polls and whistle-stops.

Senegal Debates Merits of Ban on Begging

The face of the Senegalese capital has been transformed. The beggars who swarmed along its major arteries, especially in the centre of the city, its biggest markets and independence square are gone.

DEVELOPMENT: Africa’s Time Has Come

There is the image of Africa, worse than Africa is, and then there is Africa, so much of it better than its image. It's the continent whose time has come, African civil society leaders emphasised at a meeting in Madrid Thursday.

Hope and Pessimism Converge in Cancun

On Nov. 29, the 190-member Conference of Parties (COP) will flock to the Moon Palace Hotel, an all-inclusive luxury coastal resort in Cancún, Mexico, to discuss governments' progress on climate change.

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: For Women, Cyber Crimes Are All Too Real

The Grade 10 student was first drugged, and then four men raped her. The group then apparently tried to extort money from her family. When the family filed a complaint with the police instead, the extortionists in October then posted a cellphone video of her whole ordeal on the Internet.

CHINA: ‘Hukou’ Registration System Trips Over Inequity

Yu Mengxiang is a 24-year-old office manager at a foreign company in Beijing. Although he looks and acts like a typical urban male, his household registration – or ‘hukou’ – is in a village in north-east Liaoning province, which means he isn’t entitled to government benefits in the capital. Bucking conventional wisdom, he doesn’t want any.

U.S.-KOREAS: Hawks, Doves Aflutter Over Pyongyang’s Latest Moves

Given all the other foreign policy challenges he is dealing with, the last thing U.S. President Barack Obama needed three weeks after Republicans swept mid-term elections was the outbreak of a major new crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

RIGHTS-PERU: Another Controversial Acquittal of Members of Military

Sufficient evidence was presented to sentence the members of the Peruvian army responsible for the killings of 12 men, women, children and elderly persons from two highlands villages in Peru. But after a 24-year wait for justice, a court acquitted the defendants this week.

An Overeager Petraeus Ignored Danger Signs on Taliban Imposter

The revelation that the man presumed to be a high-ranking Taliban leader who had met with top Afghan officials was an imposter sheds new light on Gen. David Petraeus's aggressive propaganda about the supposed Taliban approach to the Hamid Karzai regime.

MEXICO: Sexist Violence Invisible in War on Drugs

They were not looking for war, but it found them anyway: Yosmireli and Griselda, two and four years old, died by bullets to their heads from soldiers' guns. Their mother, aunt and seven-year-old brother Joniel were also killed, on a rural road in northwest Mexico.

EU: Extraditions Process Abuses Suspects

Robert Hörchner can only sleep for two hours at night before the sweating starts. His wife Annelies wakes up frequently, too; each time she hears a noise outside she opens the curtains, expecting to see police at the front door. The couple are traumatised because Robert spent ten months locked up in a filthy Polish cell. He has been accused of holding the lease to a property where cannabis was grown but insists that he is innocent.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: In Immigration Detention, Life Is Uncertainty

Mohsen Soltany Zand knows life inside Australia’s immigration detention system. Now an Australian citizen, Zand sought political asylum here after fleeing Iran in the late 1990s.

PHILIPPINES: Welcome to the Women-Friendly Jail

"I was shocked when I saw them," says 18-year-old detainee Chona (not her real name) of the first time she saw the duplex-style bungalows painted in pastel colours that make up her ‘home’.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Gap Between Science and Pledges Likely to Outlive Cancun

Though there is widespread acknowledgement that the ambitions for this year's climate change conference are considerably lower than for last year's, the U.N. and other groups say even the deal struck a year ago will not go far enough to stop climate change.

As U.N. Peace Missions Multiply, Civilians See Disconnect

Many United Nations peacekeepers are not only failing to meet the needs of civilians, but they are also perceived as unresponsive once civilians convey their needs, says a new report by Oxfam International.

U.N. Remains Deadlocked on Defining Terrorism

When Israeli commandos killed nine mostly Turkish activists during a raid on a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians last May, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the attack as a prime example of "state terrorism".

RIGHTS: Getting Harassment on the Map

Less common but perhaps more useful than the tourist map is the 'harassment map' that many Cairo women are beginning to refer to.

Egypt Rejects “Interference” in Elections

Egypt's authoritarian government ramped up its crackdown on journalists and opposition politicians ahead of the Nov. 28 parliamentary elections and rebuffed a U.S. call for international observers to monitor "free and fair" balloting.

BIODIVERSITY: Asia Acts To Pry Tigers From Jaws Of Extinction

It is the national animal of several Asian countries, lends its name to brands as varied as budget airlines to alcoholic beverages, and features prominently in Asian mythology, including the Chinese zodiac. But unless there is a dramatic turnaround for the tiger, conservationists say, this giant feline could become extinct before the next Chinese Year of the Tiger in 2022.

BRAZIL: Family Farming Matters in South-South Cooperation

Cooperation between countries of the developing South took another step forward with the recent signing of international agreements in Brazil aimed at stimulating public policies to support small farmers.

Pulling the Plug on Violent Propaganda

A review of modern human history finds no shortage of instances where hate speech has fuelled genocidal rampages against minority ethnic groups.