WATER: Miracle Man Eases Village’s Water Woes

Hermes Chimombo, a welder in his 50s, is a revered man in the impoverished Naotcha Township. Armed with rudimentary tools and a passion to ease people’s suffering, he has tapped a spring in the mountain above the slum to provide water for its 25,000 residents.

INDIA: Clashes Continue Between Elephant Vs Humans

Returning home from work recently, farmer Baidhar Singh was aghast to find his thatched hut in Balasore district, Orissa trampled to the ground. Just a few hundred metres away stood the culprits, huge and grey against the darkening sky: a herd of 65 wild elephants.

CULTURE-CUBA: Night of One Thousand and One Texts

The legendary Scheherazade has exchanged her enthralling tales of "One Thousand and One Nights" for a compact disc with 1,001 academic articles, essays and books, giving Cubans access to materials that would otherwise be very difficult to obtain.

AGRICULTURE: Kenyan Researchers Say Traditional Vegetables Can Improve Food Security

According to Vision 2030, which is a government strategic plan on how to boost growth and development in Kenya, there are an estimated five million out of an estimated eight million households who depend directly on agriculture, despite the fact that agriculture continues to be one of the most under-budgeted ministries.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Growing Opposition to Mining in the North

"Every day there are more organizations" that oppose the expansion of major mining in the northern Andean region of Chile, due to its harm to glaciers and water sources, activist Mauricio Ríos, of the Northern Environmental Network (RAN), told Tierramérica.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: On Alert at El Ávila National Park

Venezuelan environmentalists sounded the alarm when President Hugo Chávez announced the partial "deallocation" of El Ávila national Park, which extends over 85,100 hectares in the mountains between Caracas and the Caribbean, in order to build housing on the mountainsides facing the sea.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: IDB Supports Programs to Fight Climate Change

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will make 30 million dollars available in loans for developing renewable energy in Honduras.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Most Support Environmentalism, But Few Practice

Although 59 percent of the Brazilians surveyed said that preserving the environment is more important than ensuring economic growth, just 18 percent considered it their personal duty.

Good Omens for Climate Pact in Durban 2011

The fact that an international climate deal is possible at next year's climate summit in Durban, South Africa is a good omen for the future of our planet, writes South African Kumi Naidoo, head of Greenpeace International.

India-EU Deal Threatens Mom-and-Pop Retail

Retail giants pushing the European Union-India free trade deal promise consumers a "new and dynamic retail experience" but ignore the fate of India’s "mom-and-pop" stores and some 40 million people they employ.

MIDEAST: Israel Demolishing Talks

More and more Palestinians are paying the price for deadlocked talks over Israel’s continued settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

EUROPE: GM Debate Gets a Polish Twist

In the summer presidential campaign, fake posters of two leading candidates showed up on the streets of Polish cities. "United we stand, divided we fall", the slogan of now president Bronislaw Komorowski, became "United we stand, modified we fall". Equally bombastic "Poland is most important" by opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski turned into "Poland without GMO is most important".

CENTRAL AMERICA: Entrepreneurs, Not Diplomats, Are ‘Ambassadors’ to China

With the exception of Costa Rica, Central America does not have diplomatic relations with China, but business executives are taking the place of ambassadors and promoting closer ties with the Asian giant, hoping to cash in on its rapid economic growth.

ECUADOR: Farming in the Shadow of the Volcano

On a clear day, hundreds of families pull over in their cars and snap pictures of the column of smoke spewing out of the Tungurahua volcano in central Ecuador.

LATIN AMERICA: Quality Jobs Urgently Needed for Rising Generation

Programmes to reduce the unemployment rate among young people in Latin America and the Caribbean should be a priority for countries in the region, said experts, trade unionists and government representatives meeting in the Chilean capital.

Gains in Kandahar Came with More Brutal U.S. Tactics

The Barack Obama administration's claim of "progress" in its war strategy is based on the military seizure of three rural districts outside Kandahar City in October.

Dire Development Issues Converge in the Drylands

Few are aware that close to one billion people in over 100 different countries are suffering from or severely threatened by intense desertification. Yet awareness is crucial, for it is human behaviour that has led to the proliferation of hyper- arid, uncultivable drylands over the past few decades.

EDUCATION: Meet TESSA, Ugandan Teachers’ Best Friend

Beatrice Namuzibira’s class of 90 pupils is not even considered a large one, compared to classes in other schools. Universal primary education has filled classrooms beyond capacity across Uganda, putting a strain on teachers.

CUBA: Urban Tribes Prowl Havana Nights

A different city emerges on the weekends in Havana. Young people, whose faces are as strange as they are common, take possession of the city and reinvent it. They are the "urban tribes," a global phenomenon that has made its mark on Cuba.

U.S., Last Holdout on Native Rights Declaration, Reverses Stand

U.S. President Barack Obama announced Thursday he was reversing the U.S.'s position and endorsing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

U.N. Deplores Escalating Violence in Cote d’Ivoire

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reiterated his concern Thursday at the escalating violence in Cote d'Ivoire, where as many as 20 people were reportedly killed in clashes between security forces and opposition activists.