In Jordan camp, Syrian refugees choose school over child marriage
Mafraq, Jordan Thomson Reuters Foundation Chatting enthusiastically in a classroom at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, a group of Syrian teenage girls share stories about married friends – some with babies already, and of their own lucky escapes. Fatima was 14 when she got engaged, but had second thoughts and broke it off. Sixteen-year-old […]
High-level US delegation visits Havana amid migration crisis
Havana, Cuba Reuters A US Government delegation met Cuban officials in Havana on Wednesday to discuss Washington’s concerns about irregular migration from the island, marking the highest-level known US visit since the historic rapprochement under former President Barack Obama. US Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Rena Bitter and US Citizenship and Immigration Services […]
Petition urges Kyiv authorities not to erect tree over festive period
Kyiv, Ukraine Reuters Thousands of Kyiv residents have signed a petition urging city authorities not to erect a giant tree during this year’s festive period, and instead to give money to the army and to people displaced by the war with Russia. The Kyiv tree, which in recent years has been set up in front […]
Mexico’s “out of control” illegal trafficking threatens wildlife, report says
Mexico City Reuters A US environmental group said on Wednesday it had filed a complaint to Mexican state prosecutors, arguing that toothless regulation was allowing illegal wildlife trafficking to threaten species in one of the world’s most biodiverse countries. “Wildlife trafficking in Mexico is out of control,” the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity said in […]
Extreme heat: How ‘chief heat officers’ keep cities cool as the world warms
ANASTASIA MOLONEY, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how more and more cities are creating the new role as hotter summers cause surging health problems and economic pain in urban areas…
Torrential floods in West Africa hurt food security
Dana, Cameroon Reuters Souloukna Mourga plodded through his flooded millet and cotton field in northern Cameroon and uprooted soggy stems that had a few bolls on them. All six hectares of mostly dead crops were under water. The 50-year-old father of 12 is one of an estimated four million people, many of them small subsistence […]
Essay: Tunisia’s once-vibrant democracy is on its deathbed – but it can be saved
JOSÉ IGNACIO HERNANDÉZ G, a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, looks at Tunisia’s slide into authoritarianism…