Since the early 1990s, the rising price of crude oil and other key natural resources – and the resulting drive by governments and private companies to extract those resources – has led to sharp conflicts in Latin America. At the core of these disputes is the clash between national economic interest and the rights of indigenous people inhabiting the land where most natural resources are located.

When Dr. Ranu Dhillon stumbled upon baby Reena during a routine visit to a clinic in India, she was almost comatose and unable to get the care she needed. Dhillon traveled with Reena and her mother from hospital to hospital, but left again and again without finding treatment. [Video Below] 

“The greatest challenge we have today is that we have a world that is pushing back on rights,” said Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), at the Wilson Center. [Video Below]

As presidents, prime ministers, and other policymakers from across the continent gather in Washington, DC, this week for the first-ever U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, what are the issues to watch?

Asia is going through an unprecedented wave of urbanization. Secondary and tertiary cities are seeing the most rapid changes in land-use and ownership, social structures, and values as peri-urban and agricultural land become part of metropolitan cityscapes. All the while, climate change is making many of these fast-growing cities more vulnerable to disasters.

A roadside billboard in Malawi reads: “No woman should die while giving life.” But in many countries, death or grave injury during childbirth is an all too frequent occurrence. [Video Below]

“Environmental specialists need to change,” said Anita van Breda at the Wilson Center on June 25. “In the new normal, our work has to have a different relevancy.” [Video Below]

In March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest comprehensive synthesis of climate change research. The report concludes that “impacts from recent climate-related extremes, such as heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires, reveal significant vulnerability and exposure of some ecosystems and many human systems to current climate variability.”