How successful is India in its struggle against poverty? India's national Planning Commission recently claimed that within 7 years, the number of poor in India has declined by 22 per cent. These numbers are being challenged by many experts, according whom India's economic growth has left behind many more people.

The European Union has long proclaimed itself a leader of global climate ambition and a champion of the low carbon economy. Due to the influence of powerful interest groups, Europe might roll back its commitment to combating climate change.

As old methods have lost credibility, some governments, economists and international institutions like the UN Environment Programme have adopted a new approach, based on the view that nature is an “ecosystem service” provider. In doing so, they have shifted the onus of addressing environmental risk onto the private sector and market-based mechanisms.

Just one month after Wladimir Putin's official visit to Azerbaijan, where the chance for signing a binding trade agreement between Baku and Moscow was squandered, the Russian president welcomed his Armenian counterpart in Moscow. It's the latter who made headlines on September 3rd by surprisingly announcing that Armenia would join the Russian-led Customs Union.

The regime must not remain unpunished for the use of chemical weapons. If the U.S. and its allies do not act, the people themselves will feel even more isolated than before, and they will learn that there are no limits to the brutality.

Introduction to the panel discussion "The future of arms control - Cooperative arms limitations and reductions in times of global change" by Ralf Fücks, president of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

The political crisis in the Czech Republic, which led to the fall of the government, was triggered by police investigation. The prosecution of three former MPs in the country triggered heated debates and reactions.

In an interview, political scientist Vladimíra Dvořáková of the University of Economics, Prague, enumerates the causes of the current turbulence on the Czech political scene.