Climate Change Report “Gives No Reason for Optimism”

Amidst rumours that global warming has slowed over the past 15 years, the new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that each of the last three decades has been warmer than any preceding decade since 1850.

Haitian Government Applies Make-up to Misery

Pink, green, blue, red. From a distance, the thousands of brightly coloured houses look like a painting. The observer can’t see the suffering and dangers threatening the residents of the Jalousie neighbourhood – problems that are being ignored by the government, which is spending six million dollars on a massive make-up job.

Bloody Days in Sudan

Activists claim that more than one hundred people have been killed and thousands injured during demonstrations in Sudan following the removal of fuel subsidies.

Survivors Question U.N. Focus on Legalising Sex Work

The age-old debate over how to regulate sex work has led to a rift between the United Nations and anti-trafficking organisations, which are pressuring the world body to rethink its position following two reports that advocate decriminalising all aspects of prostitution.

Mideast and Africa Still Holdouts on Women’s Rights

Gender equality around the world has increased dramatically over the past half-century even though the vast majority of countries continue to restrict women’s economic development in at least one way, the World Bank reports this week.

Poverty Declines as Inequality Deepens

As world leaders from 193 countries evaluate the successes and failures of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) during high-level meetings and special events here, the United Nations claims that extreme poverty worldwide has been cut in half.

Sponsor a University Student in Spain

Adopt a tree. Adopt a polar bear. Sponsor a child in a poor country. The concept has caught on in Spain’s troubled academic system and now people and companies can sponsor a university student.

TransBrasil Could Boost Integration in Rio de Janeiro

The TransBrasil bus rapid transit system, which will connect poor suburbs with the centre of Rio de Janeiro, will be the high-speed bus corridor that serves the largest number of commuters in the world.

OP-ED: Sustainable Development Goals After 2015

Reducing the proportion of undernourished people by half until 2015 was one of the Millennium Development Goals that the international community set in 2000. It will not be reached: At least 870 million people worldwide – and one child in five – still go hungry; this in a world where we already produce enough food today to feed nine billion people in 2050.

Ladakh Invites New Scarcities

The Ladakh of today is a different world from the one Skarma Namgiyal remembers as a child. Back then, he had taken for granted the breathtaking beauty of its landscape, the purity of the cold mountain air, and the sweet taste of water in its streams.

Nairobi Attack Exposes Flawed U.S. Terror Policies

In the aftermath of the worst terror attack in East Africa in three years, foreign policy scholars here are urging the U.S. government to rethink its counter-terror policy in the region.

Making Local People Stewards of the Earth

The lack of land rights is a crisis not just for local people but for all of humanity, warned organisers at an international conference here.

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.

Q&A: Faith Groups as Partners in Development

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.

It’s the Day to Buy Votes in Swaziland

As Swaziland goes to the polls for the second and final round of voting in its general elections on Sept. 20, giveaways have become the order of the day in this southern African nation.

Ghana’s Growing Economy Fails to Create Jobs

Ghana’s economy registered 7.1 percent growth last year but 23-year-old Jennifer Esi Avemee has had difficulty securing a permanent job since graduating in 2011. “It's very stressful,” she laments. “It's very hard to sustain yourself.”

U.S. to Require Disclosure of Worker-to-CEO Pay Gap

Regulators here are proposing that most U.S. corporations be required to provide annual public reporting on how the pay received by their chief executive compares to that of their average workers, a requirement proponents say could be a first step in reining in an unprecedented swelling in executive compensation.

OP-ED: Financing of Disaster Risk Reduction Needs Urgent Reform

Over 20 years, disaster losses in developing nations have amounted to 862 billion dollars (a considerable under-estimate). During this period the international community has spent just 13.5 billion dollars on disaster risk reduction (DRR), equivalent to 40 cents of every 100 dollars of development aid – this has to change.

Nigerians Uncertain of Future in Bakassi Peninsula

Thomas Effiom, a 35-year old fisher in Jabane, a small locality in Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula, scoops off floodwaters from the muddy floor of his house. It is a ritual he performs each time the Atlantic Ocean overflows.

Free Lunches Come at an Environmental Cost

In spite of India’s much-publicised national renewable energy policy as part of its international commitments to reduce carbon emissions, its Mid Day Meal (MDM) Scheme, the world’s largest school lunch programme, has no energy conservation or even a fuel policy in its workings.

Climate Change Threatens Crop Yields in Brazil

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.