News stories by Isabella De Grave

With the international community vowing to ratchet up pressure on the Syrian government, non-violent activists say they remain undeterred even as the situation seems to be deteriorate daily.

Irreversible environmental damage threatens to destabilise the world's life-support systems unless urgent action is taken, according to the latest Global Environment Report (GEO-5) which looks to the Rio+20 summit as a crucial opportunity to halt this decline.

Amnesty International delivered a scathing condemnation of global and national leadership in its 2012 global human rights report on Tuesday, conveying profound disappointment in such leadership for its failure to match the determination and resilience of ordinary civilians in their resistance to repressive regimes.