Asia

Thai military declares a coup, detains key political leaders

by Chico Harlan and Lennox Samuels Washington Post May 22, 2014

Soldiers swept into the streets of Bangkok, protest leaders were rounded up and international TV networks went dark Thursday after a military coup pitched Thailand into an unsettling new period of settings...

“Land grabs” in Laos are driving poor farmers, including ethnic minorities, off their land, away from livelihoods they know and into further poverty, activists and experts say. Photo: Martin Abbiati/IRIN

Laos “land grabs” drive subsistence farmers into deeper poverty

by Dana MacLean IRIN News May 22, 2014

“When these lands [are given] to companies and converted to industrial agriculture or other uses, it destroys the foundation of rural people’s lives, livelihoods and knowledge systems, as well as their access to food, nutrition, medicines and incomes," Shalmali Guttal, a senior analyst with Focu...

North Korea’s capital, with its water parks and new buildings, coddles the elite

by Anna Fifeld Washington Post September 2, 2014

Cars, for instance. A recent visitor, in the capital for the first time since 2008, found many more of them on the streets — and not just the locally produced “Pyonghwa” brand or Chinese BYDs, but Lexus sport-utility vehicles and late-model BMWs and Audis....

CIA: No more vaccination campaigns in spy operations

by Lena H Sun Washington Post May 19, 2014

Three years after the CIA used an immunization survey as a cover in its hunt for Osama bin Laden, the White House has promised that the agency will never again use a vaccination campaign in its operations, an official said Monday....

Women, bought and sold in Nepal

by Katie Orlinsky New York Times August 31, 2014

NEPAL may be known for natural beauty and Mount Everest, but there is a dark side to this small, picturesque country. Women and girls are being bought, sold and smuggled across the Nepal-India border. Although reliable data on the scope of the issue is difficult to gather, Unicef reports that as man...

Disease of Pakistan’s poor now worries the affluent

by Saba Imtiaz and Declan Walsh New York Times May 10, 2014

KARACHI, Pakistan — Until recently, polio was considered a poor man’s problem in Pakistan — a crippling virus that festered in the mountainous tribal belt, traversed the country on interprovincial buses, and spread via infected children who played in the open sewers of sprawling slums....

Polio’s return after near eradication prompts global health warning

by Donald G McNeil Jr New York Times May 5, 2014

Alarmed by the spread of polio to several fragile countries, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on Monday for only the second time since regulations permitting it to do so were adopted in 2007....

Big budgets, little oversight in war zones

by Scott Higham, Jessica Schulberg and Steven Rich Washington Post May 4, 2014

See Report...

Hindu devotees bathed in the polluted waters of the Ganges River in Varanasi, India. Millions of pilgrims bathe along Varanasi’s ancient riverfront, but a stream of human waste flows directly into the river just above the bathing ghats, steps leading down to the river. Photo: Daniel Berehulak/New York Times

Poor sanitation in India may affect well-fed children with malnutrition

by Gardiner Harris New York Times July 13, 2014

SHEOHAR DISTRICT, India — He wore thick black eyeliner to ward off the evil eye, but Vivek, a tiny 1-year-old living in a village of mud huts and diminutive people, had nonetheless fallen victim to India’s great scourge of malnutrition....

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  • For the past 40 years, since its founding in 1976, the mission of World Hunger Education Service is to undertake programs, including Hunger Notes, that
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