King Abdullah should do more to transform his reforms - largely symbolic so fa­r - into institutional guarantees.

Thousands of people in Croatia with intellectual or mental disabilities are forced to live in institutions that strip them of their privacy, autonomy, and dignity.

According to the World Bank, 1 in 5 of the poorest people in the world has a disability. Why then does the United Nations blueprint for lifting the world’s poorest out of poverty not make any mention of people with disabilities?

New United Nations global maternal mortality estimates contradict the Indian government’s claim that it is “on track” to meeting UN goals for reducing maternal mortality.

When a woman dies from pregnancy or childbirth, it is not just a personal tragedy, but proof of how shamefully little many countries have done to tackle maternal mortality.

The Kurdistan Islamic Scholars Union, the highest Muslim authority in Iraqi Kurdistan for religious pronouncements and rulings, issued a fatwa or religious edict last month. This would not have been particularly newsworthy, except that this particular fatwa stated that “female circumcision” is not an Islamic practice.

Two tuberculosis patients have spent more than a month in Kenya’s Kapsabet prison after defaulting on their treatment. The sad truth is that patients get little support to help them stick to a long and difficult treatment. Locking up two TB patients - whether in a prison, or in a hospital isolation room - may seem to some like a solution, but in reality it will not improve the public health and it can set a dangerous precedent of arbitrary detention and injustice.

Kenyan children in acute and chronic pain suffer needlessly because of government policies that restrict access to inexpensive pain medicines, a lack of investment in palliative care services, and inadequately trained health workers.