VIETNAM: Saltwater Intrusion Adds to Water Woes

When they got out of bed one morning in April this year, the residents of Vi Thanh City here in southern Vietnam’s Mekong Delta were surprised to find that their water had become salty.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Obama Sounds Too Much Like Bush

A leading global environmental group has accused the United States of holding up UN climate negotiations.

CLIMATE CHANGE: China Rallying South to Defend Right to Development

As the December deadline for reaching a global climate deal in Copenhagen approaches, China is claiming leadership - rallying emerging economies to defend their rights to development and strike bargaining positions with rich nations.

HEALTH-KENYA: Two Dollars And Change: Enough To Save a Mother’s Life

At the age of 14, Zulekha Mumma delivered her first child. At 21, the birth of her seventh child killed her. She died from excessive bleeding in her home in Nyalenda, a slum on the outskirts of Kisumu city in western Kenya, some 400 kilometres from Nairobi.

ENVIRONMENT-ZIMBABWE: Farmers Go to War Against Lantana Camara

Armed with picks, axes and hoes, a group of enthusiastic villagers break into song: "Randana kamara wakaipa, Randana kamara wakashata.Watora ufuro hwezvipfuyo, wauraya mombe." ("Lantana camara, you are evil. You have taken over grazing land for our livestock, you have killed our cattle.")

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Focus on Housing the Urban Poor

Millions of people move to Africa’s cities every year, swelling the numbers of urban poor. "We cannot chase people away from slums," says Kelvin Mmangisa, chief executive of the Lilongwe City Assembly. "But we can improve the conditions there to make their lives better."

NIGERIA: Endemic Corruption Draining Human, Economic Resources

Government corruption has long been a fact of life in Nigeria - elections are often fraught with fraud, intimidation, and violence; oil companies have been known to pay the military for assistance in suppressing protests; embezzling politicians steal money away from infrastructure services and programmes.

POLITICS: A Caribbean Union, European-Style

– If Trinidad and Tobago and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) are to embark on their long touted economic and political union by 2013, it would involve the surrender of some political power to a European-style commission.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Agreement Prospects Slipping Away

As the electronic clock at the preparatory talks here in the former West German capital counted up to the crucial UN climate change conference Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen, the possibility of a new treaty being hammered out appeared rather remote.

SOUTH KOREA: Schoolgirls at Forefront of Street Protests

Hundreds of teenagers, many of them female, were out on the streets Wednesday demanding a public apology from the Lee Myung-bak government for the tragic death of former president Moo-hyun Roh, who committed suicide last month.

RIGHTS-US: Death Row Case Embodies Systemic Flaws, Critics Say

Since his conviction on Aug. 21, 1991, Troy Davis has been engaged in an exhaustive legal battle for his exoneration and release from death row. His efforts have garnered international support from organisations and figureheads such as Amnesty International, the European parliament, Desmond Tutu, and Pope Benedict XVI.

POLITICS: Lebanon’s Election: An International Affair

It was touted as an historic election, a vote to determine the future direction of Lebanon. But even with the winners declared, analysts say the Jun. 7 ballot was far from decisive, and did little to alter the fundamental balance of power in the country.

RIGHTS-UGANDA: ‘When a Man Hurts a Woman, There’s Nothing She Can Do’

Mary Atimango left the war-ravaged Gulu district to come and live in Kampala during the peak of the northern Ugandan conflict over fifteen years ago. The 59-year-old now lives in the small peri-urban village of ‘Acholi Quarters’ on Kireka Hill, on the outskirts of the Ugandan capital.

RIGHTS-US: Palau Agrees to Take Guantanamo Uighurs

The announcement Wednesday that Palau will accommodate Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba leaves many unanswered questions, among them whether the U.S. will accept this gesture and whether it will be the best solution to the problem of the Uighurs’ resettlement, rights activists say.

MIDEAST: Long Way From ‘Settlerland’ to ‘Palestineland’

Has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got the Obama message? To judge by his minimalist response to President Barack Obama's landmark Cairo University address and his continuing reluctance to meet Obama's demand for a total freeze on Israeli settlements, the answer would seem to be, 'No'.

INDIA: Farm Suicides Turn Children Into Farmers

Eleven-year-old Digambar Rathod looks older than his age. Shy and uncertain, he stares disconcertedly at the garlanded photograph of his father Jaideep, a 42-year-old cotton farmer who committed suicide on Jan. 1, 2009 in Tiwsala village, in eastern Maharashtra state’s suicide-torn Yavatmal district.

NORTH KOREA: U.S. Urges Release of Jailed Journalists

The harsh prison sentence given to two U.S. journalists found guilty of grave crimes against the North Korean state is eliciting concern from human rights groups and analysts.

US: Washington Heaves Sigh of Relief After Allies Win in Lebanon

The victory of the Western-backed coalition in Lebanon’s Sunday elections will likely allow the U.S. to avoid making tough decisions about how to deal with the country had the opposition, led by an armed Islamist militia, won.

NORTH KOREA: China Dismissive of Prospects for War

Dismissive of warnings that the Korean peninsula stands on the brink of war, China contends North Korea’s recent provocative actions are yet another illustration of brinkmanship aimed at attracting the U.S. attention. Beijing decried the North’s nuclear tests in late May, but remains uncommitted to tougher sanctions against the impoverished Stalinist nation.

AGRICULTURE: Liberia’s Land Just for Some

After watching the murder of her husband and his three other wives by Charles Taylor’s rebels, Fatu Bonah and her seven children fled into the dense forest to hide. "The rebels burned down our home and when I returned my in-laws had taken the land," she says. "I went to the town chief, who tried to resolve it, but the family refused, saying they had already taken over the land."

HAITI: Recruiting Far and Wide for Great Young Minds

When Garry Delice arrives at St. Joseph, a public high school in rural Haiti, something’s amiss. The cinderblock building is full of students, but no teacher can be found. Young men and women are finishing exams, and the staff has already left for the day.