Increasing Uganda’s Cotton and Coffee Production

Cotton was once one of Uganda's key cash crops but a collapse in world prices in the 1980s led to a slump in the market and production. However, cotton production doubled in the 2010/2011 season and brought in 48 million dollars in export earnings.

The Rise of Uganda’s Tobacco Production

Over the years with the demise of cotton production, tobacco has become one of Uganda's key exports. Six years after British American Tobacco set up regional headquarters in this East African nation, it has become a key tobacco producer for the company.

Iceland Tackles ‘Invisible’ Trafficking

For 18 months, a Chinese immigrant named Xing Haiou slept on a massage table in a windowless room in Reykjavik after completing his 12-hour workday.

Renewable Energy Alliance Stretches From Germany to Central America

A recent agreement between El Salvador and Germany, with the latter supporting two renewable energy projects that would increase installed capacity in the Central American country by 94.2 megawatts by 2013, points to a promising alliance for carbon-free energy.

Kinshasa Graveyard Home to Hundreds

Despite the health risks, officials say hundreds of families are living in a cemetery in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. Municipal authorities seem powerless to act.

BRICS Seeks New Dialogue with Africa

South Africa plans to boost links between Africa and its partners in the Brazil, Russia, India and China alliance at a landmark summit, which will be held in this country in March, Xavier Carim, deputy director general at the Department of Trade and Industry, told IPS.

A Year of Progress in Argentina’s Human Rights Trials

Although it didn’t receive much media coverage, this year Argentina’s justice system made strides in speeding up human rights cases, and dozens of defendants were convicted, three decades after the end of the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Iraq Sunnis Block Trade Routes in New Protest

Tens of thousands of Sunni Muslims blocked Iraq's main trade route to neighbouring Syria and Jordan in a fourth day of demonstrations against Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Guyana Hits Paydirt on Low Carbon Development Path

Imagine Guyana and Dominica without forests and rivers, or Antigua, Barbados and St. Lucia without beaches.

Sierra Leone’s Waters of Life

A coastal city, Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, is an area where people have relied on the ocean for food and employment for as long as they have lived there.

India Scores Low on Environmental Sustainability

Of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -development targets agreed upon by the international community, whose 2015 deadline is approaching fast - MDG 7 has proven a particular challenge, especially for sprawling, populous countries like India.

Gangs Back Plan for Violence-Free Districts in El Salvador

Salvadoran youth gang leaders have accepted a proposal to declare 10 municipalities free of violence – a bold plan that has run up against the mistrust of vast segments of society with regard to the gangs and their aim of reinsertion in society.

Kenya’s Growing Luxury Housing Market Not for Locals

Despite the development boom in state-of-the-art luxury homes in Kenya, the country’s upper class has fallen on hard times and can no longer afford them, according to economic experts here. Instead, Kenya’s formerly wealthy have now become part of the continent’s growing middle class.

Africa – Rising Investments, Rising Middle Class

Rising investments in Africa's service sector, the unlocking of its vast natural resources and the sound economic policies pursued by African countries in the last two decades are spurring the rise of the continent's middle class at a faster rate than population growth.

Bioshields Best Defence Against Disasters

In commemoration of the eighth anniversary of the Asian tsunami, Wednesday was a day of prayer and mourning across the Andaman Nicobar Islands – located at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea – and south India’s coastal Tamil Nadu state, two areas that suffered thousands of casualties on that fateful day.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: First Eco-Municipality

Rómulo Gallegos, a municipality in the southwestern plains of Venezuela where cattle ranching is an economic mainstay, has become the first of the country’s 333 municipalities to adopt legislation on ecologically oriented land management.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: More Research Needed on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity

Only six percent of research on climate change and biodiversity conducted worldwide since 1990 addresses the impacts of these changes on biodiversity in Brazil, according to a literature review carried out by the Boticário Group Foundation.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Livestock Raising Adapted to Climate Change

A change in forage crops and the search for new sources of water are among the climate change adaptation measures implemented as part of an initiative undertaken by eight cattle farming cooperatives in Camagüey, 534 km from the Cuban capital.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Environmental Delays Raise Electricity Costs, Says Gov’t

The Chilean government claims that delays in the installation of power lines due to legal proceedings and obstacles to the issuing of environmental permits will keep electricity prices high until at least 2016.

Indigenous Chileans Continue to Oppose Pinochet-Era Highway Project

The Coastal Highway is meant to connect one end of Chile’s long, narrow territory to the other, running north to south as close to the Pacific Ocean as possible.

Local Communities Stake Claim in Protecting Disaster-Prone Asia

From her half-built house, Ari Haryani takes a few steps to reach a freshly cemented path that snakes through the narrow, dusty walkways of this resettlement village. The path offers the 36-year-old a route to safety in case the nearby Mount Merapi, Indonesia’s most active volcano, erupts.