Women Fight Assault Over Internet

Millions use Facebook to keep in touch with their friends, post photos of reunions and parties and share links to interesting articles and videos. But for 24-year old Maria (not her real name), the popular social networking site became a source of public shame when a former boyfriend posted nude photos and videos of her in an account he had created under her name.

HIV/AIDS: Fund Rejection Worries Health Campaigners

Health rights activists in Malawi are expressing concern over the recent rejection of the country’s proposal for close to six hundred million dollars to the Global Fund to fight HIV, tuberculosis and malaria between 2011 and 2016.

ECUADOR: Delayed Return of Fishing’s ‘Golden’ Years

"This year there haven't been many 'dorados', but they're beginning to appear now," Ramón Díaz says hopefully as he disembarks with his fellow fishermen after spending the entire night out on the water.

DEVELOPMENT: Running Out of Engineers

As Brazil looks ahead to hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, the country is struggling to line up the technical workers necessary for these projects, officials say.

Student Drop Out Rate on the Increase Despite Free Education

2010 will go down in history as the year when the first batch of pupils to benefit from the government’s introduction of free primary education sat for their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE).

BRAZIL: Climate Change Means New Crop Health Concerns

Farming around the globe, already reeling from drought, heat waves and major storms, will have to prepare for the new challenges that global warming will bring, especially in the form of pests and disease.

AGRICULTURE – SOUTH AFRICA: Small Scale Farmers Face Uphill Battle

Just before sunrise 39-year -old Alan Simons, an emerging small-scale farmer, gets ready for his usual nine-hour day of harvesting, packing and deliveries. In his black Nissan van he drives ten kilometres to the seaside town of Strand outside of Cape Town to pick up his six workers, all of who are women.

HEALTH-INDIA: Vitamin A Doses Keep Child Malnutrition Away

With three small children to raise in a dirt-poor village in eastern India’s Bihar state, farm labourer Renu Devi is an unsung rural supermom who shuttles between home and field every day.

GAMBIA: Families Left Homeless by Floods

Amie Manneh and her family lived securely in their single-bedroom home in Bundung, 15 kilometers from the capital, Banjul. Then their home was destroyed by heavy rainfall in September. Since then Amie, her husband and six children have been living in the damaged house.

MALAWI: Women Claim Equal Share of Family Property

Seated on a wooden bench at her Katoto township house in Mzuzu, Grace Mkandawire’s face reflects the traumatic experiences she has endured since her husband’s death in 1998. She looks lost and confused and as she narrates her story there is fear, hatred and resignation that Malawi’s Marital Property Law of (1882) disenfranchises poor women like her.

POLITICS- NAMIBIA: Numbers of Women in Government Declining

Twenty years after independence, representation of women in senior government structures and in Parliament is declining in Namibia. According to the latest demographic survey results of August 2010, out of a population of around 2 million, women outnumber men 10:9. In 2001, the ratio was 94 males per 100 females.

FOOD CRISIS: Two New Varieties of Vegetables on Kenyan Food Market

Agriculture remains one of the most significant economic activities in Kenya. It accounts for over 24 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with an estimated 70 percent of total production coming from small scale farmers who typically have about 2-5 acres of land, depending on the region.

CAMBODIA: Aid Dependence May Hurt Successes in HIV, AIDS

Thanks to a healthy cocktail of foreign aid and a pragmatic condom policy, one of South-east Asia’s poorest countries is well on course to meeting an international target aimed at reversing the spread of HIV and AIDS.

GUATEMALA: Women Make Inroads in Key Positions of Power

Guatemala, it seems, is trying out a new image. As of this month, women are at the helm of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Comptroller General's Office, winning their posts on merit, in what local activists are calling an important step in women's access to political power -- though "there is a long way to go."

MAURITIUS: They Do Politics Differently

"I do politics every day, but partisan politics? No, thank you," says Jane Ragoo, long-time trade unionist and social worker. She believes in working to bring about change in society and improve people’s lives but has no interest in clambering onto a truck to campaign for office.

AGRICULTURE: Desperation Over Subsidies

As the rains start to fall in Malawi, marking the beginning of the growing season, government is continuing to implement the fertiliser and seed subsidy programme which has since made the country a bread basket in the Southern African Development Community, SADC.

SOUTH AMERICA: Rain May Disappear from the World’s Breadbasket

South America still has vast extensions of land available for growing crops to help meet the global demand for food and biofuels. But the areas of greatest potential agricultural production -- central-southern Brazil, northern Argentina, and Paraguay -- could be left without the necessary rains.

ARGENTINA: Affordable Housing – A Distant Dream

While real estate investment and the number of upscale apartments for sale or rent are growing in the Argentine capital, tens of thousands of poor families are living in crowded shanty towns, and are demanding affordable housing and access to mortgage programmes.

Cholera Forces Haiti to Face Sewage Dilemma

The cholera crisis is forcing Haitian authorities to address an unpleasant and now life-threatening problem – untreated feces.

NEPAL: Education Shouldn’t Be A Casualty in Emergencies

Nepal may be doing well in providing complete primary education to boys and girls, but has quite a bit of catching up to do when it comes to ensuring that their schooling does not become a casualty during disasters and emergencies.

Q&A: “Transparency Helps Ensure Donors’ Promises Are Met”

This past September, world leaders meeting at the United Nations vowed to spend $40 billion over the next five years to save the lives of more than 16 million women and children dying of deadly diseases or lack of medical care, particularly during and after pregnancy.