Improved roads have made a difference in Afghanistan. But the basics--the chaotic social and political situation--remain the same.

Living in a country where huge income and wealth inequalities are accepted as normal dulls everyone's capacities, from top to bottom.

Is the Wikileaks "editor-in-chief" a journalist or an activist? Or both?

Humans have proved ourselves predators par excellence. Like volcanoes and earthquakes human beings have become a kind of uncontrollable force of nature.

if properly grown, processed, and marketed, cocoa could become a transformational source of food and nutrition, revived culture and agriculture, biodiversity, and personal and social health.

The folly of endless economic growth on a finite planet.

While Foreign Policy identifies five true international catastrophes, it fails to grapple with the main problem behind what is causing them.

The gunning down of the country's media stars is a body blow to Russian democracy.

We're unlikely to see a repeat of the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariffs that worsened and lengthened the Great Depression. But you can forget trade-opening agreements.

In months, China will raise its currency to where it was before the global meltdown in 2008. Big deal.

The World Cup and Hollywood celebrities are lending their voices to the anti-trafficking cause.

Why China needs democracy to consolidate its environmental gains.

This latest outbreak of violence is delayed fallout from George W. Bush's misadventures in regime change.

Never has the tension between collector, dealer and so-called "source" nation been higher.

Women's rights groups gather strength online, reports a journalist who was subsequently jailed by the Iranian government.

The awesomely awful Stalin Museum and other Georgian delights.

Israeli officials responded to the Navi Marmara incident like any bully who finally gets the bloody nose he deserves.

A new video game is causing offence with its troublesome, drunken Irish character. Will the Irish always be cast as the Drunken Paddies on screen and is it their own fault?

In a new twist on poverty eradication, a handful of "insignificant" villages are being razed to the ground to be replaced by a mirage of affluent urban India.

The Aral Sea is disappearing-- and with It, the identity of a nation.