World News

In March 2011, at the beginning of the Syrian uprising, protester Ibrahim Abazid made a massive white flag out of a sugar sack. This picture of him waving the flag in his hometown of Dera'a became a hugely popular image. Now Abazid hopes to serve on a cit

World News

As Syrian War Grinds On, A Rebel Keeps Reinventing Himself

6:51pm December 24, 2012

by Kelly McEvers

Since the uprising began, Ibrahim Abazid has been a protester, a rebel fighter and an aid worker. Now he is looking to form a city council that could run his hometown in southern Syria.

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Kenyan Susan Oguya created an app to help farmers in her homeland. Shown here in the office of her company, M-Farm, she also belongs to the group Akirachix, which seeks to bring more Kenyan women into the tech world.

World News

Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

5:18pm December 24, 2012

by Gregory Warner

Say the words "high-tech startup" and chances are you picture a world that's mostly white, male and set in Silicon Valley. Now, a group in Nairobi, Kenya, is working to get more female entrepreneurs into the male-dominated world of tech.

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World News

No Breakthrough In Sight For Peaceful Transition In Syria

5:18pm December 24, 2012

by Peter Kenyon

Amid continued bloodshed in several parts of Syria, international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held another round of talks with President Bashar Assad in Damascus. But there was no sign of progress toward a peace deal.

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World News

In Cornwall, Lisa Simpson Rivals Queen Elizabeth

6:41am December 24, 2012

by Philip Reeves

In Britain, every year on Christmas Day, the Queen delivers a speech to her subjects. Recently in Cornwall, which is part of England, a new royal tradition has taken root based on an episode of The Simpsons.

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Baruj Cano, 4, watches as his father and other men from Bello's Jewish community read from the Torah.

World News

'Lost Jews' Of Colombia Say They've Found Their Roots

12:38pm December 23, 2012

by Juan Forero

Raised as Christians, they say their ancestors were Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain more than 500 years ago; they now practice Orthodox Judaism. Similar cases have turned up in other countries in recent years.

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Japan's economy has been struggling for two decades and faces some of the same problems the U.S. has. Here, a man in Tokyo passes an electronic board displaying falling global markets.

World News

Japan's Economic Woes Offer Lessons To U.S.

9:21pm December 21, 2012

by Frank Langfitt

Japan's economy was a world beater in the 1980s. But the country has now gone through two tough decades and there's no end in sight. What lessons might it hold for the U.S. as it confronts the "fiscal cliff"?

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World News

More Israeli Settlements Could Scuttle Peace Plan

3:19pm December 20, 2012

by Philip Reeves

After the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to recognize the Palestinians as a non-member state, Israel announced it would expand settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. If completed, the project would effectively divide the West Bank in two, according to the Palestinians.

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An employee tidies boxes of medicines displayed in a pharmacy in the city of Caen in western France last month. Beginning in 2013, girls between the ages of 15 and 18 will be able to get birth control free of charge, and without parental notification.

In France, Free Birth Control For Girls At Age 15

3:16pm December 20, 2012

by Eleanor Beardsley

Starting in January, the French government will provide contraceptives for girls ages 15 to 18 — without charge and without parental notification. The measure, which passed parliament without debate, aims to reduce teen pregnancies by increasing access to birth control and education.

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Dr. Aun Pyae Phyo examines a baby at the Whampa malaria clinic on the Thailand-Myanmar border.

A View From The Ground: Thailand Confronts Drug-Resistant Malaria

3:16pm December 20, 2012

Global deaths from malaria have dropped sharply in the past decade, thanks in part to powerful drugs called artemisinins. But on the border between Thailand and Myanmar, doctors are starting to see cracks in artemisinin's armor. The medicine is working more slowly, and sometimes not at all.

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Toby Ord, founder of Giving What We Can.

World News

How Much Good Can You Do? There's A Calculator For That

3:16pm December 20, 2012

by Mark Memmott

The "Giving What We Can" campaign urges members to donate 10 percent of their incomes to effective charities. Over many years, the group's calculators suggest, such giving could improve far more lives than you might imagine.

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