Some 8 million people die from cancer every year. Although the disease can strike at any time in a person's life, the risk generally increases with age, making greater prevalence in some countries with higher life expectancies more likely. Other factors include alcohol and cigarette consumption, availability of screening and treatment facilities, and quality of treatment. According to The Lancet medical journal, over the next two decades any reductions in infection-related cancers will be "offset by an increasing number of new cases that are more associated with reproductive, dietary, and hormonal factors" around the world.
How do countries in Europe and North America limit free speech? Hover over each country for details.
RFE/RL's interactive map shows the countries of Europe and the Muslim populations in each nation.
For every $10 drop in the price of crude oil, Russia loses about $106 million in foreign currency income a day.* Russia's 2015 budget is based on global oil prices averaging out at about $100 a barrel. At the start of 2015 Russia was losing some $500 million a day in projected income.
Take a look at the 2014 media and civil society crackdown in Azerbaijan -- a country Reporters Without Borders calls "Europe's biggest prison for media personnel."
Havel’s Place is a memorial dedicated to Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright-turned-dissident who led the 1989 overthrow of communism in Czechoslovakia and later went on to become the country's president. Each Havel's Place comprises two chairs linked by a round table with a tree growing through its center to symbolize a willingness to sit down and talk. Here are the memorials around the world.
In Ukraine, every picture tells a story. RFE/RL traveled to six Ukrainian cities in search of old family photographs -- and the people who treasure them as an affirmation of who they, and their country, are today.
Diana Markosian traveled to the Chechen capital, Grozny, to document a city transformed. These images show streets and buildings pulverized during the first Chechen war of 1994-96, and how they look today - after the city's massive refurbishment.
A U.S.-based rights watchdog says Internet freedom around the world has deteriorated for the fourth consecutive year, with the steepest declines in Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey. In its "Freedom On The Net 2014" report, released on December 4, Freedom House says that Iran, Syria, and China are the world's worst abusers of overall Internet freedom.
Worldwide, the number of new HIV infections continues to drop. Some parts of the former Soviet Union are notable exceptions. There the HIV epidemic continues to grow, most significantly in Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
More than two decades after the fall of Communism, Europe remains a continent divided in many respects. Traffic statistics offer one example. Eastern Europeans still own fewer cars than their Western cousins, but road fatality rates in the east remain far higher, on average, than in the West.
From November 21, 2013, until February 22, 2014, when former President Viktor Yanukovych fled his post, downtown Kyiv was the scene of constant protest and occasionally violent conflict. These were the key spots.
Load more
