A dissident Vietnamese blogger known by the pen name "Mother Mushroom" was on her way to freedom in the United States (US) on Wednesday after being released from prison where she was serving 10 years for anti-state propaganda, sources told AFP.

The ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees Celsius’ (SR15) released last week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that the world has around 12 years before the increase in global atmospheric temperature is likely to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Jailed drug user Bitoy Paras perks up when describing his support for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly war on narcotics, an unlikely fan of a campaign that has left Filipinos deeply conflicted."Duterte talks tough, saying he will get rid of addicts...

The Philippine’s Eastern Visayas islands of Samar and Leyte bore the brunt of Typhoon Haiyan as it made landfall in November 2013, leaving in its wake a trail of destruction affecting 14 million people. The record-breaking typhoon that created a storm surge of up to 19 feet caused more than six thousand deaths, damaged over one million homes, and displaced over four million people. The economy and people’s livelihoods were also not spared.

The wealth of nations is often measured by its physical, natural and institutional resources. Seldom, if ever, are their human capital considered as economic resources. When the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank offer financial aid, they usually impose conditions to limit public spending on health and education.That approach may be revised in future as the World Bank has recognised the value of human capital to a nation’s economic future.

In December 2015, recognising the need for an effective and progressive response to climate change, the world’s leaders came together to commit to a landmark agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Sitting in a building made from used tyres, plastic bottles and old sneakers, Cambodian student Roeun Bunthon jots down notes during an English lesson at the "Rubbish School" where tuition is paid for with trash instead of cash.In return, needy kids like Bunthon, a former street beggar, can take computer, mathematics and language classes - and learn the value of reducing waste in a notoriously polluted country where recycling is nearly non-existent."I've stopped begging...

Thailand’s Great Flood of 2011 which took place between July and December affected more than two-thirds of the country. The event, deemed the worst flooding in half a century, affected 65 out of the country’s 77 provinces, killing more than 800 people. It was estimated that 13.6 million lives were affected, with a million of them displaced or left homeless. The economic damages associated with the flooding event were widespread.

Item 10 on the United Nations’ (UN) list of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is to reduce inequality by 2030. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) called income and gender inequality a growing global problem.

The practice of “pulling wife”, bride kidnapping or marriage by capture is an old tradition among the rural Vietnamese. According to old custom, young girls are symbolically kidnapped and detained for two to three days by young boys, sometimes in collaboration with his family, to force a marriage negotiation with the girls’ parents. The girls’ parents could ask for her release or accept the marriage, following which the bride price – to be paid by the boy’s family – would be bargained.