It was 20-year-old Fizer Boa who first migrated south to Ghana’s capital, Accra, to work in the local Abobloshie market as a porter or “Kayayei”.
The U.S. government is being urged to roll back a longstanding policy that has banned foreign aid funding from being used for health care services for victims of sexual violence in conflict situations.
It took them three days to make the 2,000-km journey by bus from their Amazon jungle villages.
Flowers burst out of old tires and rows of pepper plants fill recycled plastic tubs as herbs pop out of old pipes. As utilitarian as it is cheery, this rooftop array is one of several urban agriculture projects that are significantly improving livelihoods for the urban poor in this sprawling city.
In the early morning hours, as hundreds of people grab their breakfast at a busy bakery in Beogradska Street in the Serbian capital, a very special basket quickly fills up with croissants, rolls and breads. It is the ‘solidarity basket’.
Delays in finalising Malawi’s climate change policy, which has been in the making for the last three years, are affecting millions of families living in disaster-prone areas across this southern African nation, says the country’s minister of environment and climate change management Halima Daudi.
As president of the Council of Ministers of the African, Caribbean and Pacific states, Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi had the perfect forum to voice his concerns about the effects climate change has had on his island nation.
Paul Anley, chief executive officer of Pharma Dynamics, one of South Africa’s leading generic drug companies, wants to sell a cheaper version of popular birth control pill Yasmin. But he legally cannot because German multinational Bayer has patent protection on the drug in South Africa, even though its initial patent expired in 2010.
When the white apartheid regime in South Africa kept the overwhelming majority of blacks under military repression, the country's security forces were armed with weapons originating mostly from a highly-developed domestic armaments industry.
Some say it's the journey, not the destination that matters. Hop aboard the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) line at Tanzania's Dar es Salaam port and begin the 1,860-kilometre journey to Kapiri Mposhi, a small town in Zambia's Central Province, and you may find yourself pondering this adage.
The faint explosion is a reminder that though the newly refurbished fence protects their town, the two-and-a-half-year-old civil war which is tearing their motherland apart is never far off.
Authorities in Romania have been attempting to bulldoze through public opposition to push through controversial extractive projects such as gold mining at Rosia Montana and shale gas drilling at Pungesti.
The Mocho Mountains that run through the centre of Jamaica were once covered by lush tropical forests that helped control rainfall. Now, much of the forests and farmlands have been destroyed and the community is hard hit by the resultant extreme weather.
Africa can achieve sustainable development by scaling up "green economy" initiatives. What is needed is increased allocations from within national budgets supplemented by donor funding, claim experts.
New research suggests that some AIDS patients are developing drug intolerance and severe side effects and will now have to switch to new, more expensive antiretroviral regimens.
Aliakbar Mousavi is a former member of the Iranian parliament and an internet freedom and human rights advocate now living in Washington, DC. In 2006, he was arrested and jailed by the Iranian government for urging human rights reforms.
Maureen Phiri, 18, has a soft voice and a strong message about HIV and young people in her country. “In Malawi, people are still in denial because of cultural beliefs. Traditional leaders and churches are denying the disease. Let us gather those leaders and hear from young people what is really happening.”
The terrible bloodshed in Syria has been going on for over two and a half years. It has caused one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history, with more than half of Syria’s pre-war population now needing humanitarian assistance for their survival.
A new poll following the election of President Hassan Rouhani says that a majority of Iranians oppose Iran’s intervention in Syria and Iraq and believe that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons despite their government’s claims to the contrary.
Ten days after the signing in Geneva of a groundbreaking deal on Iran’s nuclear programme, the agreement appears safe from any serious attack by the strongly pro-Israel U.S. Congress, at least for the balance of 2013.
Livias Duri, 72, from Zimbabwe’s Mwenezi district in Masvingo province, 436 km southwest of the capital Harare, depends on agriculture for his livelihood.