encyclopedia of current events

For leaders of the right-wing populist "Tea Party" who have bragged about their growing influence â€" if not domination â€" of the Republican party, the past week's battle over the future of the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) has been a humbling experience.

A few short hours after Honduran President Porfirio Lobo said he had seen evidence that Alfredo Villatoro, a radio reporter kidnapped May 9, was alive, the journalist's body was found in a residential neighbourhood on the south side of the capital.

The trial of General Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army chief accused of orchestrating war crimes and a campaign of genocide, has begun at a special U.N. court at The Hague in the Netherlands.

The decision by the European Parliament (EP) to renounce its participation in the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development next month on the grounds that hotel costs are exorbitant has provoked sharp criticism from civil society organisations.

In the coming decades, the world's population is expected to grow by at least another two billion people, 80 percent of whom will live in cities by the year 2050.

The statistics have remained staggering: every two minutes, a woman dies of pregnancy and child birth-related complications caused primarily by severe bleeding, infections, high blood pressure and unsafe abortions.

The entry into force of Colombia's free trade agreement with the United States was met by student protests and opposition from a segment of the business community, small farmers, and trade unionists.

The rising spectre of terrorism in Syria shows that by clinging to power and refusing to implement meaningful reforms, Arab autocrats in Syria, Bahrain, and elsewhere are indirectly contributing to the resurgence of terrorism in their societies.

Patricia Gómez, an engineer, is leading a training workshop for a group of 11 men at the fire station in Neiva, the capital of the department of Huila in southwest Colombia.

As the number of migrant Filipino workers in Russia inches closer to 5000, Moscow and Manila are busy negotiating a bilateral labour agreement that could allow thousands more overseas workers into various sectors of the Russian economy.

All 27 foreign ministers of the European Union have strongly spoken out against Israeli demolitions in Area C of the West Bank. Since the beginning of 2011 not less than 60 EU-funded projects have been demolished while 110 others are currently at risk. Several analysts claim the Israeli authorities are specifically targeting EU-funded projects.

For several decades, governments around the globe have turned to privatisation as the best option to help relieve the world's destitute by providing them with health care services, water and electricity. By and large, however, this effort has failed.

The year 2011 was one of extremes for the small Sri Lankan village of Verugal.

Georgia is clearly the closest U.S. ally in the South Caucasus, moving in lockstep with American interests on just about every foreign policy issue â€" except one: Iran.

More than two years after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, NGOs and private contractors are continuing to provide 80 percent of the country's social services.