Two decades ago, Japan was the main threat to U.S. global economic dominance, but this challenge waned before the advent of the 21st century. Now China and India are the new champions of growth, with the clear implication that population size is a decisive factor in their rise to power.

Thawing permafrost is threatening to overwhelm attempts to keep the planet from getting too hot for human survival.

Many aspects of gender inequality are well known and well documented. But there seems to be little awareness that male behaviour leads to greater emissions of climate-changing gases.

Human-induced heating of the planet has already made rainfall more intense, leading to more severe floods, researchers announced Wednesday.

Cambodia must ensure it offers a safe haven to asylum seekers, rights groups say, following the government’s closure this week of a United Nations-run refugee centre, home to dozens of Montagnards from Vietnam.

Cambodia must ensure it offers a safe haven to asylum seekers, rights groups say, following the government’s closure this week of a United Nations-run refugee centre, home to dozens of Montagnards from Vietnam.

The iron fist that has kept a tight grip on Egypt’s labour movements for nearly six decades relaxed this week, unleashing a wave of wildcat strikes that is testing the resolve of the country’s new military rulers.

The EU is facing accusations of tacitly supporting child labour after its main decision-making body approved a trade agreement with Uzbekistan on textiles — an industry known to involve at least one million child labourers a year.

The Muslim world is reeling from the fall of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, but the effect is unlikely to ripple through Pakistan despite people’s disenchantment with their leaders, officials and academics say.

While a handful of young sex workers have been under the spotlight in the weeks following a high-profile sex scandal involving Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, tens of thousands remain invisible victims of human trafficking.