On March 13, nearly three weeks after Park Geun-hye became the first female president of South Korea amid a climate of rapidly escalating tension that began with a February nuclear weapons test, the North issued its first official statement directed at Seoul’s new leadership.

“This frenzy kicked up by the South Korean warmongers is in no way irrelevant, with the venomous swish of skirt made by the one who again occupies” the presidential Blue House, said the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces in a statement.

It was a sexist jab — in Korea, a “swish of skirt” is a common insult referring to a woman who is overly aggressive.

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Europe’s Industrial Revolution spurred unprecedented technological and economic progress. It also inflicted a tremendous human cost. Millions of workers toiled in dangerous conditions. The same would hold true some two centuries later in East Asia, where explosive industrial growth was coupled with sweatshops and child labor.

Now African leaders are plotting their own era of mass industrialization. In the Ivorian capital Abidjan this week, delegates from across the continent and beyond gathered for a six-day conference themed, “Industrialization for an Emerging Africa.” A high-powered panel of speakers declared Africa primed to take off as the new “workbench of the world.”

“Industrialization cannot be considered a luxury but a necessity for the continent’s development,” said Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the new head of the African Union Commission.

"Water holds the key to sustainable development," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in a video address today for World Water Day. "We must work together to protect and carefully manage this fragile finite resource."

In the 10 years since American forces invaded Iraq — touted as a necessary action to remove a dictator, prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction and bring about democracy — human rights abuses have abounded and not abated.

Even after withdrawing combat troops, the US intelligence apparatus maintains a large presence in Iraq, and reports indicate that US involvement could even be beefed up to assist Iraqi forces in the near future.