Pakistan is still reeling from flooding that caused one of the world’s costliest natural disasters in 2010, with millions of people lacking shelter, infrastructure in ruins and donations falling short of appeals. But worse may come.

Activists hope that a popular agitation against the setting up of a factory to manufacture asbestos products in the eastern Bihar state will result in a nationwide ban on the large-scale import into this country of the deadly mineral fibre.

The wave of political protests that has struck parts of the Middle East and North Africa over the past few weeks has also affected the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The protest movement here, initiated in the wake of the Tunisian Jasmine revolution, underscores the population’s demand for political reform.

Sri Lanka’s garment industry has launched a multi-million rupee campaign to bring in female workers shunning the country’s most profitable sector for better paying jobs.

Amid the continuing stand-off between protestors and the Egyptian government, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama appeared Wednesday to be losing patience with both President Hosni Mubarak and his new vice president, Gen. Omar Suleiman.

As the powerful collective energy continues to surge through Dakar, veterans of the World Social Forum (WSF) are taking a moment to examine the history, trajectory and future of the alternative global movement.

When the 192-member General Assembly, the highest policy- making body at the United Nations, meets to formally induct its president, the choice is usually a foregone conclusion because the decision is made far in advance of the annual opening session in September.

Millions of cancer patients around the world benefit from a medication called Paclitaxel (Taxol), which may begin to be produced from a new source: fungi found at the summit of Venezuela's flat-topped mountains. But the indigenous communities who have lived in that area since time immemorial will receive no benefits, and were not even consulted on the matter.

It is only the second time that the World Social Forum (WSF) takes place in Africa, the first one having been held in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2007. Since the start of the WSF in Porto Alegre, Brazil, 10 years ago, the organisers have been building African participation.

Uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and across the Middle East at the start of 2011 have reminded the world just how politically fragile some countries are. But the focus of international politics has been shifting for some time now.