Profiting from Sustainable Forests on Communal Land in Mexico

Mario Guzmán plans to start cutting down trees again in August and September, the last months of the rainy season. “Now the roads are impassable, and the trucks can’t get in to haul out the timber,” the Mexican farmer, whose community is sustainably managing its forests, told IPS.

Caribbean Sees Progress on HIV/AIDS, Fears Funding Cuts

Ian McKnight, executive director of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVCC), used one word - “tokenistic” - to sum up his perspective on the 19th International AIDS Conference that ended here over the weekend.

Private Sector Debt Gnawing at Developing Countries

Twelve years after a global campaign successfully advocated the cancellation of some of the world’s poorest countries’ public debt, developing economies are again facing unsustainable debt burdens. Only this time, it is the private sector’s debt in developing economies that is inflating dangerously.

Trading Across the Line of Control

As part of recent confidence building measures aimed at minimising tensions between India and Pakistan, which arose largely due to conflicting claims over Kashmir, the two countries have decided to make the Valley an economic bridge, rather than a bone of contention.

AIDS Meet Ends with Talk of Cure, But Realities of Scourge Persist

As the International AIDS Conference ended in Washington on Friday, organisers unveiled groundbreaking new research on the promise of early anti-retroviral (ARV) drug therapy.

Children Injured in Police Crackdown on Chile’s Mapuche Indians

“We have been trampled by this racist Chilean state, which oppresses us. The police force represses all Mapuche people…they shoot at us in cold blood.”

Govts Boost Nukes While Cutting Aid, Social Services

As U.N.-led talks on disarmament resume in Geneva Monday, calls are growing for nuclear-armed nations to cut spending on their stockpiles and instead divert resources to development.

Military Service Leaves Culture of War Behind in Guatemala

“I feel proud to be a part of this change. Malnutrition cannot be wiped out in just two or three years, but this is the beginning and I want to be a part of it,” says Isabela Tzoc, a civic service volunteer involved in a youth programme aimed at fighting extreme poverty in Guatemala.

Punish Those Carrying Out FGM, Say Côte d’Ivoire Campaigners

Nine women in the northern Côte d'Ivoire town of Katiola have been convicted for carrying out female genital mutilation – the first time that a 1998 law banning FGM has been applied.

Africa Must Earn Its Climate Change Adaptation Finance

With the United Nations Climate Change Conference less than four months away, African countries need to present convincing arguments and successful adaptation projects to attract competitive funding for adjusting to changes in global weather patterns, climate finance experts say.

Banksters Hijack Microfinance

For several decades, microcredit presented itself as a magical and benign financial tool for the poorest people in the world, who were otherwise completely excluded from conventional commercial banking services, to secure easy access to loans in order to set up their own businesses and live a dignified life.

Papua New Guinea Casts Wide Net Against Malaria

In Papua New Guinea, a Pacific Island nation located south of the equator, 90 percent of the population is at risk of malaria and 1.9 million cases are reported every year.  But, according to a recent medical study, a programme to distribute long-lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets to every district in the country has dramatically reduced malaria infections.

Bolivia’s Indigenous Women Seek the Political Kingdom

A growing number of Bolivia's indigenous women are participating in politics, ready to break the barriers of gender and ethnicity.

Climate Change and Poverty, a Deadly Cocktail for Dominicans

"Nobody mourns the poor, you know." That is the grim conclusion of a resident of La Ciénaga, one of the many poverty-stricken settlements clustered along the banks of the Ozama River in the Dominican capital, and which are at the mercy of the weather.

Security Gaps Fuel Cote d’Ivoire Prison Escapes

Eliane Negui knew just what to do when she got word that a group of inmates had escaped from Abidjan’s main prison, MACA, earlier this month. After all, the 24-year-old, who has lived across a dirt road from the facility for nine years, had witnessed the same scenario just two months before. 

In the Pursuit of Education: Burkina Faso’s School for Shepherds

Salou Bandé is proud to stand at the front of the only classroom in the village of Bénnogo, 90 kilometres north of the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou, sharing his knowledge with his students. He is part of an initiative to improve education for nomadic children in the West African country.

Cultivating Toxic Crops

At a time when spiraling input costs and perennial shortages of irrigation water are breaking countless farmers’ backs, a small village community on the outskirts of Lahore appears to have been spared.

Bankers or ‘Banksters’?

European media, political leaders, and the citizenry are bashing bankers again, overtly calling them at best accomplices of numerous illegal activities, at worst downright criminals.

Deck Stacked Against Women’s Land Rights in Asia

Women across Asia are being shut out from prosperous forestland because of a paradigm geared towards male ownership, according to a new report by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), an environmental non-governmental organisation.

U.S. Aims for AIDS-Free Generation Amid Funding Cuts

As more than 20,000 health workers, scholars and activists from around the world gather here this week for a major biannual AIDS conference, observers are warning that U.S. government proposals to cut HIV/AIDS-related funding could undermine the significant potential to deal a decisive blow to the disease in the near future.

Child Rape on the Rise in Sri Lanka

A spate of child rape cases in Sri Lanka has angered child rights activists and moved the government to consider tightening the relevant laws and making the offence punishable with the death sentence.