AFRICA: Financial Crisis May Increase Pressure for Debt Repayment

The collapse of the financial markets may force the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to come down hard on African countries to repay their debts because the huge rescue packages for collapsing banks will need to be recuperated.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: More Debt But Still No Development

Shupikai Machinya, a Zimbabwean cross-border trader who attended the recent Southern Africa Social Forum in Manzini, Swaziland, is one of the many delegates who wanted to understand just how a country ends up in debt.

HEALTH: The Global Killer You Never Heard Of

Although a safe and effective vaccine has been available for eight years now, 1.6 million people still die from pneumococcal diseases every year, making it the number one vaccine-preventable cause of death worldwide. More than half of the victims are children.

RIGHTS: A Home Shouldn't Be a Luxury

Increased reliance on private banks to provide housing will cause more homelessness in cities across the world, warns a top U.N. expert on rights.

PHILIPPINES: 'Women Take the Brunt of Climate Change'

Filipina farmer Trinidad Domingo views the coming rice harvest season with trepidation. A typhoon destroyed much of her crop and Domingo estimates that her two-hectare plot will produce less than the usual 200 sacks of rice.

INDIA: Water Privatisation – 'No Need For Costly Consultants'

The Indian corporate conglomerate, Tata, says it is ready to provide water services in this vast country and also prove that privatisation does not have to involve expensive foreign consultants and providers.

DEVELOPMENT: Harmonious Cities – a Social and Environmental Solution

Sao Paulo emits only a tenth of the greenhouse gases that San Diego produces, even though this Brazilian metropolis is four times larger than that city in California, according to a report released today by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).

CHILE: Achievements in AIDS Fight Marred by Irregularities

Irregularities like delays in notifying 25 people that they were HIV-positive, which led to the deaths of at least two of them, have cast a shadow on Chile's exemplary image in the field of AIDS prevention and treatment.

DEVELOPMENT: Now Sit Up and Listen

For every one in 50 people around the world to make a point of standing up somewhere on the planet to say the same kind of thing adds up to a lot of people. More than any mass mobilisation on any issue ever before.

ENVIRONMENT: Worst Forms of Pollution Killing Millions

Gold mining and recycling car batteries are two of the world's Top 10 most dangerous pollution problems, and the least known, according a new report.

POLITICS-SWAZILAND: A Woman With Swagger

The writing is on the wall. "WANTED - Men who Believe that Wives are not for Beating," reads a poster on Nonhlanhla Dlamini's office wall.

HEALTH: Swaziland About To Eliminate Malaria

Hot on the heels of Mauritius, health experts predict Swaziland will be the second country in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to eliminate malaria.

ARGENTINA: Govt Announces End of Private Pension Funds

Against the backdrop of the current global financial turmoil, Argentine President Cristina Fernández on Tuesday proposed the elimination of the privately administered retirement accounts created 14 years ago.

ECONOMY: Rich-Poor Divide Worst Among Rich Countries

The "American Dream" of upward social mobility appears to have emigrated from its birthplace in the United States to northern Europe, according to a major new report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the growth of economic equality over the past 20 years.

DEVELOPMENT: Reviving the Family Farm

The world is in a phase of transition, in which family farming is emerging as an "anti-cyclical" alternative for guaranteeing economic growth and food security, said Brazilian expert Laudemir André Müller.

Q&A: Fistula Turns Women Into Outcasts

Women suffering from obstetric fistula in Malawi received free medical care to reverse their condition during the country’s Fistula Week.

ECONOMY: Usual Suspects Eyeing Zimbabwe for Massive Deregulation

As the global financial crisis unfolds and more questions are asked about excessive deregulation, the World Bank and others are preparing economic policy prescriptions that will throw open Zimbabwe’s economy to the whims of the world markets.

DEVELOPMENT: Cell Phone Service, But No Toilets

It is a fact of the 21st century that some of the poorest regions of the world have good mobile phone coverage but no toilets or safe drinking water.

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: New HIV Vaccine Trials Raise Hopes

After two HIV vaccine trials were halted for safety reasons last year, a new trial is set to commence within the next few months in South Africa and the United States. Scientists will test a new vaccine formula produced in South Africa. It will be the first time a HIV vaccine manufactured in a developing country will be trialed in the developed world.

TRADE: Cotton Subsidies Remain Big Hurdle in WTO Doha Round

The Doha Round was launched in 2001 in Doha, Qatar, to provide a developmental dimension to global trade by enabling developing and least developed countries to secure enhanced access for their products in rich country markets. However, there is a pronounced shift in the negotiations in the last seven years - from developmental issues to the purely market-driven concerns of the dominant players.

TRADE: African States Won’t Compromise on Development in Doha

Faced with the global financial crisis and high food prices, African countries want to conclude the much-delayed modalities agreement in the Doha Round of talks on agriculture and market-opening for industrial goods by the end of this year.