The World

10 ESSENTIAL STORIES

By Harriet Barovick, Ishaan Tharoor, Alexandra Silver, Claire Suddath, Frances Romero, Kayla Webley and Josh Sanburn Monday, Oct. 04, 2010

    • 1 | New York City

    Revisiting Antipoverty Aims

    With just five years left before the target date for the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals, world leaders assessed the situation at a three-day summit ahead of the General Assembly's annual meeting. The U.N. says the world is on track to halve extreme poverty by 2015. But progress has not been uniform, and given current circumstances, many goals--such as reducing maternal and child mortality--are unlikely to be accomplished on schedule.

    [The following text appears within a chart. Please see hardcopy or PDF for actual chart.]

    Halving extreme poverty by 2015

    NO PROGRESS/DETERIORATION

    PROGRESS INSUFFICIENT

    PROGRESS SUFFICIENT

    CLOSE TO OR COMPLETED

    North Africa

    Sub-Saharan Africa

    East Asia

    Southeast Asia

    South Asia

    West Asia

    Latin Am./Carib.

    SOURCE: U.N.

    2 | Mexico

    A Plea to Drug Lords

    Following the killing of two of its reporters in the past two years, Ciudad Juárez's leading newspaper published a front-page editorial asking drug gangs to explain "what we should try to publish or not publish." El Diario de Juárez went on to blame the government for failing to protect its citizens against drug cartels. At least 22 reporters have been killed in Mexico since President Felipe Calderón announced his 2006 war on drugs, and many newspapers now censor their coverage of drug violence for fear of retribution. Last month Calderón reaffirmed his commitment to the drug war, which has seen 28,000 slain in more than four years.

    3 | Tajikistan

    A Massacre in the Mountains

    Militants ambushed a convoy of Tajik troops on Sept. 19, killing at least 25 soldiers as they traveled through the Rasht Valley, a mountainous area long plied by extremists and drug traffickers. The attack, allegedly carried out by insurgents trained in nearby Pakistan and Afghanistan, came after more than two dozen inmates linked to al-Qaeda escaped prison last month. Tajikistan's authoritarian government waged a bloody civil war against Islamists in the 1990s.

    4 | Afghanistan

    Fraud, Threats Hamper Vote

    Braving bombings, kidnapping and threats from the Taliban, 4.3 million Afghans cast ballots Sept. 18 in the country's parliamentary elections. The turnout, the smallest of any elections since the 2001 toppling of the Taliban, was kept low by security fears, which prevented about 1 in 5 polling stations from opening. Allegations of widespread ballot fraud plagued those that did open; some stations were missing ballots and ballot boxes altogether. Nearly 4,000 complaints have been filed.

    5 | Italy

    Vatican Bank Under Investigation

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