The world's 200 million international migrants have traditionally been viewed in terms of dollars and cents: how much hard currency have they remitted to their home countries?

Organisations representing sectors of the Colombian population that have suffered from four decades of armed conflict, like indigenous and black communities, shared their experiences over the weekend in the 'World Peace Summit', which also drew prominent international experts on Latin America.

Economics Nobel laureate Paul Krugman helped unveil a new, lifesaving invention at the 2009 Ig Nobel awards ceremony last week - a pink brassiere that doubles as a pair of filtering gas masks.

Thandi Sihadi stands next to a dry tap. As a maize and dairy farmer in one of South Africa’s driest districts, the lack of running water is nothing new to her.

Romania is heading for a week of massive protests by state employees. With the governing coalition collapsing last Friday, the new minority government will have a hard time navigating between the demands of the protesters and the austerity measures demanded by its international creditors.

Ultranationalist groups behind the violence in Belgrade last month face ban by the Constitutional Court of Serbia.

Three Israeli soldiers, automatic rifles slung across their shoulders, are questioning a group of Palestinian builders. The top floors being added to the concrete house that lies right alongside Israel's security wall which divides off occupied East Jerusalem from Palestinian territory on the eastern side of the wall have evidently aroused some concern.

Like everyone else, Barbara Hashimoto hated the junk mail coming in through the door. Until she decided one day that it could be transformed into art, and lessons about the environment.

The first decade of South Africa’s black economic empowerment (BEE) policies saw the creation of a predictable list of politically connected beneficiaries, featuring names such as Patrice Motsepe, Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale. Now new regulations may see other companies — including white-owned business — enter the BEE stage.

Typhoon Ketsana, which swept into the Philippines and left hundreds of people dead and massive devastation in its wake, should serve as a wake-up call to the government.