With a court order to close one of Tajikistan's most popular mosques, President Imomali Rahmon's administration is stepping up its campaign to neutralise both Islam and the last vestiges of any political opposition.

The best way to protect the Arctic is for all nations with an interest in the region to participate in its governance - including non-Arctic nations like China, Brazil, and Singapore - suggests a new report.

'Midwives in Guatemala attend to women during pregnancy, the birth and the post-partum period. They give the women warmth and support, because they speak the same language and belong to the same culture,' said Silvia Xinico with the Network of Organisations of Indigenous Women for Reproductive Health.

'The best way to eliminate the nuclear threat anywhere is by eliminating nuclear weapons everywhere', says Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, who is increasingly viewed as one of the strongest opponents of nuclear arms.

Land degradation poses a threat to all life on Earth including humanity. To stop the enormous loss of life-giving land, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is pushing for a sustainable development goal of Zero Net Land Degradation (ZNLD) to be adopted at the upcoming Conference on Sustainable Development, known as Rio+20, in Brazil.

Informal settlers on prime land in Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, are now living under tarpaulin shelters amid the debris of their homes after two attempted evictions to make way for a luxury waterfront development. Undefeated, residents are now preparing a court case to challenge the legality of a lease issued to a commercial developer on land designated as a National Park.

This week, for the first time, the World Bank began publishing decisions by the institution's sanctions board on cases involving fraud or corruption.

Islanders on India’s Great Nicobar Island in the Bay of Bengal, barely 144 kilometres from Sumatra, fled when they felt the first tremors of the 8.6 magnitude earthquake on Apr. 11. They leapt across creeks inhabited by estuarine crocodiles, haunted by memories of the devastating 2004 Asian tsunami that took the lives of thousands of people.

Though most Lebanese take great pride in their national education system, deep sectarian rifts in public schools have made it impossible to ignore the political and religious fragmentation of society or its long-term impacts on youth.

Bangladesh, which has shown low HIV prevalence rates so far, may be silently moving towards an epidemic, say experts who point to underreporting and poor monitoring for the virus in the general population.