News stories by Lily Hough

Buy now, pay later. That's the power Muhammad Yunus gave to the world's poor.

Controversy over its electoral process has dominated headlines on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the months preceding highly anticipated polls, but an international human rights group shifted the world's attention to another, not unrelated problem Wednesday - the country's feeble judicial system.

Witnesses' chilling depictions of a new Sudanese genocide at an emergency congressional hearing Thursday quelled any remnants of doubt that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Nuba mountain region of South Kordofan.

The Barack Obama administration promised Tuesday that the U.S. would not prosecute relief agencies for delivering aid to parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamist insurgent group al- Shabaab, despite concerns that unrestricted aid in the failed state would be diverted to the wrong hands.

While an estimated 12.4 million people linger on the brink of starvation in the Great Horn of Africa, U.S. officials and world relief agencies said Monday that even in a 'best case scenario' the crisis will worsen as the areas in most desperate need remain cut off from access to relief.

When news of the disastrous BP oil well explosion reached the residents of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana last April, Mayor Tim Kerner did the only thing he could think of to stop the oil from destroying his community. He encouraged everyone in his town to join him on the water, working day and night throughout the disaster to clean-up the spill.

While recession in the U.S. delivered a series of record lows, from crashing property prices to residual birth and marriage rates, an analysis of new census data suggests it accomplished at least one record high - the wealth gap between whites and minorities.

As South Sudan was admitted as the 193rd member of the United Nations on Thursday, officials in Washington said the hard work in the fragile new country has just begun.

Burmese convicts forced into military service have endured mistreatment that warrants a U.N. investigation into war crimes in the country, according to a new report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) Wednesday.

Two days before celebrating the independence of South Sudan in Juba, senior U.S. officials warned Thursday that unresolved issues between the new country and Khartoum, as well as ongoing conflicts along or near their common border, threaten the stability of both states.