Amid rising violence throughout Afghanistan and Taliban death threats, women in Afghanistan are running in next month’s parliamentary elections in record numbers. The number of women serving in Afghanistan’s parliament has more than doubled since 2005.
With voting billed for 18 September, Kabul’s streets have been plastered in posters and billboards, many of which show [...]
Direct peace talks between Israel and Palestine could begin as early as September — the first talks since December 2008. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell have urged the resumption of peace talks before the end of the Israeli moratorium on new building in Jewish [...]
Iranian Atomic Energy Organization officials say the impending Aug. 21 opening of the country’s first nuclear power plant demonstrates Iran’s ability to withstand international pressure and pursue domestic policy goals. Iran is under multiple sets of United Nations-backed sanctions over concerns the country’s nuclear program may be intended to create weapons. Read more on: Bloomberg
Russia [...]
Prince Charles yesterday urged the world to follow Islamic ’spiritual principles’ in order to protect the environment.
In an hour-long speech, the heir to the throne argued that man’s destruction of the world was contrary to the scriptures of all religions – but particularly those of Islam.
He said the current ‘division’ between man and nature had [...]
Afghan human-rights advocates worry an order by the Taliban to stone a couple in Kunduz province Sunday is just the latest sign of the Taliban’s growing confidence in their ability to impose their will on the Afghan population. Witnesses said hundreds of villagers — including family members — participated in carrying out the sentence, which [...]
Islamabad, Aug 15 – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called upon the world to step up assistance to Pakistan, where some 20 million people are affected by the country’s worst floods.
More than 700,000 houses and over 3.2 million hectares of standing crops have been destroyed or damaged, officials said. Ban will hold a joint press [...]
Posted in Climate Change, Environment, Human Rights 
Tags: Children, Environment, Human Rights, Millennium Development Goals, UN 
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Almost 14 million people have been affected by serious flooding in Pakistan.
People in the flood’s wake were already desperately poor and what little possessions they had have been washed away. The extent of this crisis is only slowly emerging. The more villages that are reached the grimmer the picture becomes.
There is a desperate need for [...]
Rotavirus vaccines can prevent 39% to 48% of infections among even the poorest children in developing countries, according to reports published in the journal Lancet. More than 400,000 children die from rotavirus every year. Vaccination programs, already standard for newborns in the U.S. and other developed countries, should be launched in developing countries immediately, researchers [...]
Posted in Environment, Health, Human Rights Tags: Children, Development, Environment, Health, Human Rights, Women No Comments »Across the Sahel region, an estimated 10 million people are at risk of famine. Niger and Chad, two of the poorest countries in the world, have declared states of emergency.
The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian savannas in the south. It [...]
Children Carry Guns for a U.S. Ally, Somalia
Somali human-rights groups and UN officials report that the Somali government is recruiting hundreds of child soldiers to fight on the front lines of its ongoing conflict with radical Islamic insurgent forces.
The UN has named the Somali government as one of the most persistent recruiters of child [...]
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