China's skyrocketing demand for timber to fuel its economic boom is driving illegal logging and contributing to the destruction of forests in Asia and Africa, needed now more than ever to halt climate change, a new environmental report says. 　　China is now the biggest international consumer of illegal timber, according... More

　　Weeks after Typhoon Bopha tore through the southern Philippines leaving more than 1,000 dead and hundreds missing, residents of this town are still adrift on a sea of hopelessness. 　　Anna Jane Saigod, 16, is not sure about how to fend for herself and two other siblings who survived the storm.... More

　　The European Union (EU) must impose a total ban on Israeli settlement products entering its markets and ensure that Israeli companies operating in the occupied Palestinian territories are not benefitting from EU-Israel trade agreements, according to a new report. 　　"Given that trading in settlement goods amounts to a form of... More

　　Afghan authorities are still torturing prisoners, such as hanging them by their wrists and beating them with cables, the United Nations said, a year after it first documented the abuse and won government promises of detention reform. 　　The latest report shows little progress in curbing abuse in. The report released... More

　　By Finian Cunningham 　　France’s intervention in Mali is simply this: a neo-imperialist power grab dressed up in “war on terror” rhetoric. 　　Since the old colonial power began bombing the West African country on 11 January, the Paris government has wrapped its actions up with chivalrous language of saving the region,... More

　　Documentary sheds light on large-scale pillaging of books from Palestinian homes in 1948, when Israel was founded. 　　Rasha Al Barghouti takes a few steps towards one of several large bookcases in her Ramallah home, treading slowly just four months after having hip replacement surgery. She takes out a thick blue... More

　　An escalating scandal in the United Kingdom about horsemeat illicitly included in processed foods has shed light on the complex cross-border nature of food industry supply chains and sparked concern about the European Union's food safety system. 　　British ministers have hinted that they would ban some EU imports if health... More

　　UN agencies have warned of a growing humanitarian crisis in Syria, as an estimated four million people there are in need of assistance. 　　UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said the opposition-held north of Syria remained largely out of reach of aid operations, even though they had been stepped up elsewhere... More

　　On Saturday, Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat died from wounds suffered while being held in an Israeli prison. Israeli officials claimed Jaradat died from a heart attack but now say the autopsy evidence is inconclusive. Palestinian officials determined his death was the result of torture. 　　Described as being in good health... More

　　Israeli restrictions and closures coupled with the worsening fiscal situation of the Palestinian Authority is causing "lasting damage" to the competitiveness of the Palestinian economy, the World Bank warns. 　　In a report issued on Tuesday ahead of a meeting of global donors in Brussels on March 19, the World Bank... More

　　The Western press and social media often seem to exercise two options for dealing with the Muslim population of the world: overt, unabashed Islamophobia or slightly subtler Islamophobia. 　　As Georgetown University's John L Esposito writes in the foreword to Nathan Lean's The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of... More

　　More than half the population of Syria is likely to be in need of aid by the end of the year, the UN high commissioner for refugees has warned, while labeling the ever-worsening crisis as the most serious the global body has dealt with. 　　António Guterres, who has led the... More

　　The Somali capital has suffered decades of war and failed governance, but is still looking to its future. 　　Here in Mogadishu, Somalia's shattered capital, a sustained period of relative calm holds, allowing the city's buildings to come back to life, thanks to a massive reconstruction effort. Laborers gather at dawn,... More