Archives

29.02.2008 Energy is the key to Europe's new relationship with Russia - and supposedly Moscow's weapon of choice in its plan for European domination. Yet this new Cold War is not inevitable, says Misha Glenny.
From: New Statesman

29.02.2008 As Kenyans celebrate the political breakthrough over power-sharing, a crisis posing a risk to 35,000 people is looming in the north and south-east over water scarcity and pressure on grazing pastures.

29.02.2008 Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and analyst Steven Radelet look at the growth of democracy and economic activity in sub-Saharan Africa -- particularly the case of Liberia -- and explain how progress can be sustained and consolidated.

29.02.2008 Coinciding with the opening of the 2008 UN Commission on the Status of Women, women's advocates are calling on the public to urge U.S. representatives to support laws against child marriage, a custom that affects nearly half of the 331 million girls living in developing countries.
From: Women's eNews

29.02.2008 African rights advocates challenge President Bush's establishment of U.S. military forces in Africa by citing the opposition of various African heads of states and representatives of the Southern African Development Community, who maintain such a force "would have a negative effect."

29.02.2008 The 22-member Arab League recently introduced a regional policy to regulate satellite television broadcasting services that will "restrict freedom of expression and information," writes an international human rights watchdog.
From: Human Rights Watch

29.02.2008 A program in the poverty-stricken Central Terai region of Nepal seeks to improve women's and girls' health by training young people as peer educators, community activists, and counselors in the fields of health, family planning, and HIV/AIDS.

29.02.2008 Car travel must be cut by at least 80 percent, road construction halted and public transport boosted if Australia is to have any hope of meeting carbon emission targets to avoid dangerous climate change, according to two professors at an Australian university.
From: Green Car Congress

29.02.2008 Turning just one Sumatran province's forests and peat swamps into pulpwood and palm oil plantations is generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands and rapidly driving the province's elephants into extinction, a new study by WWF and partners has found.

28.02.2008 Despite the global interest in the rise of China, no-one is paying much attention to its ideas and who produces them. Yet China has a surprisingly lively intellectual class whose ideas may prove a serious challenge to western liberal hegemony, says Mark Leonard.
From Prospect

28.02.2008 A large number of HIV+ women who get pregnant say they didn't intend to, but U.S.-funded programs to prevent HIV, which got a boost in spending yesterday, do not provide contraceptions.

28.02.2008 The United States should follow the example set by other nations around the world and normalize relations with Cuba, "a country that continues to expand its influence as a leader in public health in developing nations," writes JoJo Farrell.

28.02.2008 Global warming, swelling populations, and the increasing accessibility of arms are making water scarcity a growing source of conflict in Ethiopia and Kenya.

28.02.2008 Violence incited by a taxi strike against high fuel prices in Douala, a major city in Cameroon, is spreading to other parts of the country, including the capital, Yaoundé.

28.02.2008 Alarming local and international rights activists, several officials in the Thai government are speaking freely about the 'necessity' of using extra-judicial killings as part of a national clampdown on narcotics.

28.02.2008 The Garnaut Climate Change Review, commissioned by Australia's governments and dubbed Australia's version of the UK's Stern Review, has released its interim report (PDF).
From: Garnaut Climate Change Review

28.02.2008 Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) - a virtually untreatable form of the respiratory disease - has been recorded at the highest rates ever, according to a new report.

28.02.2008 An international media freedom group has voiced concern over the health of detained Chinese cyber-dissident and human rights lawyer Yang Maodong, who has been on hunger strike for 11 weeks.
+ CPJ Highlights China's Poor Press Record

28.02.2008 A new report shows that soils treated with organic compost materials can absorb and sequester carbon better than soils that are farmed with conventional fertilizers.
From: WBCSD/GreenBiz

27.02.2008 For all his lofty talk of national unity, Obama may actually put back the arrival of a post-racial America, argues Trevor Phillips.
From Prospect