Some 30 years ago, scientists in Boston discovered that children exposed to lead from gasoline exhausts, dust and paint became impulsive, aggressive and had trouble learning in school.

Now scientists report that when those children grew up, they unleashed a wave of crime on the country.

And while our wave...

In an effort to finance green energy and clean up vast deposits of toxic wastes, India has imposed an innovative one dollar tax per ton of coal mined or burned. In just two years the environmental tax fund has grown to nearly $1 billion.

The decision by India to create...

Death finally came to Vera on Mother's Day -- 70 years after the French and Germans tried to kill her.

In 1943, Vera and her brother hiked over the Alps from Nazi-occupied France into Switzerland. And since then Vera has stood proof to the resilience and goodness of human beings.

The damage to the mental and physical health of children and adults from lead, chromium and other toxic wastes has emerged as equal to the risk of malaria in three Asian countries -- India, Indonesia and the Philippines -- a new report shows.

The study, by experts from New York...

In the rambling, suburban Alternative House in Northern Virginia, just a half hour drive from the nation's Capitol, thousands of runaways, throwaways, and homeless youth have found shelter, counseling and a new start on life in the past 44 years.

But now the cuts in federal funding known as...

When I first went looking for Col. Hugo Chavez, I found myself sweating in the dusty heat in front of the dark metal door of his prison.

It was a few days after he had failed to take over the government of Venezuela in 1992 and been...

More than 140 countries meeting in Geneva last month signed off on a pact to curb the release of toxic mercury around the world by giant coal-burning power plants as well as 13 million poor artisanal gold miners.

The pact, signed January 21 in Geneva makes significant progress in curbing...

The thin, blue burkas hanging on pegs in a sad little row indicated the diminished status of women in the northern Afghan city of Faisabad.

About 200 Afghan girls and boys who had completed the local high school were trying to learn computers and English at this private school endowed...

This article is written to a man who has never met me. I saw him on the news swearing he would never let his children be vaccinated against polio.

He swore that the polio vaccine is against Islam and it is intended to kill or make sterile the Muslim children...

In newspapers the day after Christmas I saw a photo of Pakistani Christians celebrating their holiday in fear that they will be attacked by Muslim neighbors.

I too sat with the Pakistani Christians in Lahore a few years ago and heard terrible stories of the fear they face...

Supporters of Alan Gross, the 62-year-old aid worker jailed three years ago by Cuba for handing out Internet equipment, called Friday on the U.S. government to send a high-level envoy to Havana and seek release of the ailing humanitarian worker.

The Gross family is also...

Each year tens of thousands of people are poisoned by toxic mercury spewed into the air, land and water by small-scale gold miners in Indonesia and other low income countries where production has soared as gold prices skyrocketed.

Now a U.S.-based NGO is working with a Danish...

As developing countries from Peru to China become industrialized, millions of tons of toxic pollution are being spread around by batteries, factories and mines -- placing at least 125 million people at risk of death or disease, according to a new report by two non-governmental organizations.

After hundreds...

Dr. Arthur Keys has given out $3 billion in aid to the world's poorest families.

As founder and CEO of one of the largest U.S. nonprofit agencies, International Relief and Development (IRD), he is still handing out about $500 million in aid a year.

And because...

The United States hopes that $16 billion in civilian assistance plus additional billions for military training and support for Afghan forces will prevent a collapse of the Afghan government after most U.S. and other foreign forces withdraw in 2014, a senior U.S. official said last Tuesday in Washington.

Worms, those squishy animals sought after by fishermen for bait and early birds for nutrition, have not got a new occupation -- treating thousands of tons of toxic sludge left in farms and fields by Indian factories as industrial growth skyrocketed in recent years.

The key to success has...

A friend asked me if President Obama should have met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the U.N. last week. She asked if America's Jews will be angry at Obama for not being more supportive of Netanyahu.

No, I said. Netanyahu does not deserve or need overt U.S. backing...

The trouble with democracy assistance is that it works.

When you go to a country that has a one party state ruled by a strongman for decades, the fastest way to remove him is to allow free press, election monitors and opposition party training; and to improve the skills of...

The problem with the Middle East is the Middle East.

Over and over, outsiders have tried to go beyond the basics of trade, free navigation and non-aggression to insert themselves into domestic issues such as democracy, ethnic and religious rights, education and internet access.

Like the Crusaders of old and...

The world seems to be descending into chaos and violent conflict, from Bali to New York, Moscow to Jerusalem. Forty years ago it was possible for me to travel by car, motorcycle, bus, train, and truck from Paris to Katmandu and back without encountering a single threat. Half the places...