MIDEAST: Flowers Fight Their Way Out

Ayman Siam, 41, is not growing carnations as usual this year. It’s limonium and statice flowers instead because they are hardier. Given the risks of an Israeli blockade, it’s a political decision.

Africa Begins to Rise Above Aid

An increasing number of African countries are beginning to step away from aid dependency, as the domestic private sector becomes the engine of growth across much of Africa.

Brown Revolution Brings New Hope

Picking spots for cattle to graze could reverse desertification and even do its bit to retard climate change, new experiments in Zimbabwe have shown. It’s what is coming to be called the Brown Revolution.

MIDEAST: The Olive Branch Fights Back

"During hard times, we have survived off olive oil," says Ahmed Sourani from the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee. "During the last war many people who couldn’t leave their homes had only bread and olive oil to sustain them for long periods."

ZIMBABWE: Chinese Become Unwelcome Guests

Alec Marembo has built his family fortune making bricks in Dzivarasekwa, a sprawling high-density suburb north of the capital of Zimbabwe. But due to the economic crisis of the last decade, his fortune started crumbling. Although he could break even when the downturn started, he finally gave in to competition from the Chinese.

CAMEROON: Stepping Naturally Away from Plastic

Maya Stella, a restaurant manager in the capital of Cameroon, no longer uses plastic to wrap the corn-fufu that she sells to her customers. She now uses banana or plantain leaves instead, because these are "natural and it is our African culture to use leaves in wrapping food."

AFGHANISTAN: Trains Face a Rough Political Terrain

Last month the first cargo train crossed the ‘Friendship Bridge’ from Uzbekistan to the border town Hairatan in northern Afghanistan, and rolled along 75 kilometres of newly laid track to Mazar-e-Sharif.

BOLIVIA: Artificial ‘Islands’ to Protect Cattle from Annual Floods

Small-scale dairy farmers in this remote area of Bolivia's northeastern Amazon region of Beni have a new hope for protecting their livestock from the fierce annual floods that start in December.

ZIMBABWE: Microcredit Aggravates ‘January Disease’

Thomas Dlakama has experienced what he calls "January disease" all his working life. This phenomenon afflicts millions in Zimbabwe, and its symptoms include an empty purse, rising blood pressure among irascible breadwinners, and a general inexplicable hope of manna from heaven.

BANGLADESH: Farmers Bet on Climate-Proof Crops

With floods, droughts and other calamities battering deltaic Bangladesh regularly, farmers need little prompting in switching to climate-resistant varieties of rice, wheat, pulses and other staples.

BRAZIL: Miracle Mileage from a Hobbled Economy

In 2011, Brazil's economy grew by less than half the 7.5 percent it attained in 2010. However, this result would be miraculous in any other country with the barriers to productivity and competitiveness that prevail in Brazil.

MAURITIUS: Women Find a Political Voice, Locally

Under a new gender quota law introduced in Mauritius, at least one-third of the candidates in local elections must be women. But the adoption of a national quota is not yet on the horizon, even though just 18 percent of legislators are women and there are only two female cabinet ministers.

KENYA: Walking Metres Rather Than Kilometres to Fetch Water

The acute lack of water in Kenya means families have to trek long distances every day to fetch water. In both rural and urban areas, people often walk as far as 30 kilometres or more to collect water from rivers, streams or wells. But thanks to self-help projects backed by NGOs, some communities are coming up with solutions.

AFGHANISTAN: Catch ’em Young, for Prostitution

Soma was a teenager in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif when her grandfather arranged her marriage to a husband she had never met.

SOMALIA: Rebuilding Among the Rubble

With vehicles and donkey carts packed with their belongings, Somalis are returning, four years after they fled, to their partially standing, bullet-scarred and mortar-shelled neighbourhoods in former Al-Shabaab controlled areas of Mogadishu.

The Oil That Comes in from the Cold

Thanks to soaring oil prices and new technology, oil producers in the hot sands of Arabia, the torrid Niger delta or the humid plains of the Orinoco are facing new competition from rivals in the frozen North.

CAMEROON: The Taps Have Run Dry

Mama Rosalie of Damas quarter in the capital of Cameroon trudges down a narrow, winding footpath, headed for a narrow stream running far below, a 20-litre water container in her right hand.

DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Tribal People on the Warpath

This small town, barely 150 km away from the bustling eastern metropolis of Kolkata, hit news headlines in December 2008 when adivasis (indigenous people) led by Maoist rebels briefly captured it.

The Unsustainable Political Deficiencies of Environmentalism

The environmental movement won the ideological battle with the growth of awareness on climate change. Environmentalists are no longer seen as "loonies" or granola-eating hippies: the people seen as on the fringe" now are the climate sceptics who deny that global warming is caused by human activity.

DEVELOPMENT: When a Quick Fix Gets the Deep Six

Figuring out how to change the world for the better is a daunting challenge, but throngs of passionate people are willing to take on the task.

PERU: No Time Left to Adapt to Melting Glaciers

The water supplied by the glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, vital to a huge region of northwest Peru, is decreasing 20 years sooner than expected, according to a new study.