As a source of foreign currency, international tourism is thirty times bigger than it was 60 years ago, with more than 700 million tourists hopping from one country to another every year.

Carlos picks me up with his dated Soviet-made Lada at the Jose Marti International Airport on a hot sweltering day in Havana. It’s been eight months since I’ve seen him, last January to be precise, when I came to the island on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. “How’s it been?” I ask him as we begin the 20 minute drive to central Havana.

In a movement to counter the expansion of the United States military presence on Colombian bases, Colombian and Venezuelan civil society organizations and government officials are collaborating to organize spaces of binational reconciliation called "peace bases."

How much did the boycott of South Africa actually contribute to the fall of the racist regime? This week I talked with Desmond Tutu about this question, which has been on my mind for a long time.

The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader Yukio Hatoyama speaks during a news conference after his party won the lower house election in Tokyo August 31, 2009. The DPJ is set to win Sunday's general election by landslide, sweeping the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) out of almost unbroken power since 1955.

As U.S. cities consider the urgent need for sustainable public transportation options, advocates are looking for ways to achieve the environmental benefits of such projects without displacing residents through gentrification of surrounding areas.

Decades of rapid-fire development and lack of government oversight has meant that China now faces some serious environmental challenges. According to research by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, China surpassed the United States as the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases in 2006—and hasn’t looked back.

More than half a thousand immigrants’ rights and social justice organizations have sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking that he stop a controversial program whereby state and local police are allowed to participate in immigration enforcement policies.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, it was the accepted view among many social scientists that, as ethnic assimilation advanced, ethnic group identities would fade away. But in fact, ethnicity continued to impact significantly upon political life. Why was that?

It’s a muggy late August evening in Woodstock. The scent of hours-old summer rain breathes new life into the earth around the Colony Café. As I walk up to the Spanish-style façade of the club I see a group gathered in the alley. They’re standing around a smallish man recognizable by his large, white cowboy hat. It’s Ramblin’ Jack Elliot.

If you aspire to be a star woman athlete but have no aspirations to appear in Playboy's Women of the Olympics issue, you are far better off being from South Africa than the United States. The Western media's handling of the story of Caster Semenya, the gold-medal-winning 18-year-old South African runner, has been at best simplistic and at worst repellent.

Much as the international practice of buying and selling sports talent hurts the feelings of people who live in poor countries – euphemistically referred to as "developing countries" – is actually part of a much more serious and deep-seated crime that also includes brain drain, the theft of a nation’s artistic and cultural patrimony, unequal exchange, asymmetric integration, migration for economic reasons and many other forms of imperial plundering.

Gaza’s troubles have somehow been relegated, if not completely dropped from the mainstream media’s radar, and subsequently the world’s conscience and consciousness. Weaning the public from the sadness there conveys the false impression that things are improving and that people are starting to move on and rebuild their lives.

The Congressional Budget Office announcement of a nearly $10 Trillion price tag on government borrowing for the next decade has sent a shiver up the spine of the most committed liberals. Some time ago economist pundits were debating the "multiplier" effect of the stimulus.

It's like a can of worms from which a few are slithering out. Most of the major media have avoided even approaching it. But if it is as is being suggested the implications are enormous, touching not only on the real reason prisoners were tortured but, as well, into the real origin of the war in Iraq.

A small army of specialists have been ordered to determine if South Africa's international champion in the women's 800 meter race, Caster Semenya, is really a woman. After her blazing victory and complaints from her international opponents, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ordered a "gender test."

The largest member of the dolphin family and a major draw at marine parks, orcas (also known as “killer whales”) are highly intelligent and social marine mammals that, because of these traits, have come to be known as ambassadors for nature and marine ecosystems around the world.

The Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Washington, DC categorically rejects the editorial "The Advantages of Chavez," published by the Washington Post today. Once again, this newspaper irresponsibly lashes against the government of President Hugo Chávez Frías and the glorious Venezuelan people.

Homeowners can get up to $1,500 back from the federal government for any number of energy efficiency upgrades at home. If you upgrade to energy efficient insulation, windows, doors, heating, air conditioning or water heaters between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010, you are eligible for a tax credits of up to 30 percent of product costs.

We have to differ with many local and foreign analysts who have tried to understand the situation in Honduras by imposing pre-existing parameters and by using basic concepts of the Marxist dialectic without any scientific criterion.