News headlines in May 2012

While governments and international institutions are focusing on a stronger role for the private sector in development aid, a new report by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) released yesterday suggests there is good reason to doubt this approach.

The United Nations has warned that despite the austerity measures put in place by South Sudan to deal with its economic woes, humanitarian agencies will have to increase relief efforts in order to keep the country’s poor alive as the financial situation worsens.

The ambassador of Niger to the United States, Maman Sidikou, on Thursday called on the U.S. to step up military collaboration with African countries to support a potential intervention in Mali.

Canada, in a dramatic political turnaround, has signaled its willingness to recognise water and sanitation as a basic human right.

There was little familiarity with community networks in Cuba until Apr. 25, 1987, when the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Centre (CMMLK) was founded. Today, this ecumenical Christian organisation links up local initiatives with others in the Americas.

A bill under discussion in the Nicaraguan parliament has unleashed a nationwide debate on the concept of family.

The United States and its Western allies appear increasingly inclined to push for regime change in Syria, although the latest round of diplomatic talks at the U.N. Security Council Wednesday suggest that it remains a distant possibility.

More than 100 people gathered Wednesday outside the gates of Chevron's sprawling headquarters in upscale San Ramon in the San Francisco Bay area of California, where police and security barred those without passes to the shareholder meeting from entering.

Going to school without eating breakfast has become a normal part of daily life for thousands of children in Portugal, whose growing vocabulary now includes the word 'crisis'.

Hundreds of Tibetans have been reportedly detained by Chinese security officers in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, after two Buddhist monks set themselves on fire in protest against China's rule over the Himalayan region last week.