Uganda faces a particular impediment: a stubbornly high birth rate, and the prospect of seeing a population of 38 million nearly triple by 2050. [...] To achieve middle-income status, Uganda must cut its birth rate sharply and quickly, experts say, as well as foster educational opportunities for adolescent girls.

Aliya Harir was born in 1991 in Karachi, and grew up hating India. As a child, she’d often worry about India attacking Pakistan and ask her father where he’d take her in case an attack happened. But today, she is one of the founding members of the Catalyst, a non-governmental organization (NGO) working for peace. It is a part of the Aaghaz-e-Dosti (start of friendship) initiative, in association with Mission Bhartiyam group of India, to enhance people-to-people relations between India and Pakistan.

In its short history of two-thirds of a century, the State of Israel has fought many wars, some of them against overwhelming odds, and has won them all. Right now, however, it is badly losing a war fought with words, not bullets, but the effect of which can be just as devastating for Israel’s future. This is, of course, the public diplomacy war.

African Union and European Union countries should work together to strengthen protections for human rights defenders in Africa and migrants in Europe, Human Rights Watch said in recommendations to the AU and EU released today. The annual AU/EU human rights dialogue will be in Brussels on November 20, 2013.