FINANCE: Oil Majors Rapped Over Secrecy, Corruption

Leading oil firms impede efforts to stamp out poverty and corruption by shrouding their financial dealings in secrecy, says a global watchdog.

SOUTH AFRICA: Water Supply Proposal Sparks Controversy and Suspicion

A plan to increase the supply of potable water to two coastal towns in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province is provoking heated debate.

TRADE: Zimbabwe, ”A Hard Sell”

The Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF), which ended this past weekend, was once celebrated as a forum to showcase the vast investment opportunities in the then bread basket of the Southern African region. It was established almost five decades ago.

KENYA: Relocation of Traders in Nairobi Still Beset With Problems

Jackson Gitonga’s business has suffered during the recent post-election violence. He could not leave his house to sell his wares - second-hand shoes which, he says, are of high quality. He recorded a loss for the first time since he had started working as an informal trader three years ago.

ASIA: Food Crisis Adds to Women’s Burden

As if the burdens they shoulder are not enough, Asia’s women are being compelled to bear the additional weight of rising food prices, say women’s rights activists from across the region.

PERU: Preserving the Potato in Its Birthplace

Thousands of varieties of potato (Solanum tuberosum), one of the most widely-eaten and well-known foods in the world, have been developed in the heart of South America’s Andes mountains, where the crop was domesticated more than 8,000 years ago.

MEXICO: New Recipe Against Poverty

The government of conservative President Felipe Calderón presented a new anti-poverty strategy in Mexico Monday, which will initially focus on delivering food aid to the poor.

DEVELOPMENT: If There's No Rice, Let Them Eat Potatoes

When a gaggle of unruly and starving peasants complained about a shortage of bread in 17th century France, the queen consort Marie Antoinette is said to have infamously remarked: "Let them eat cake."

ARGENTINA: Training Health Agents to Reduce Child Mortality

An ambitious new programme for training health agents to help reduce infant mortality in small rural communities and indigenous villages, launched by one of Argentina’s best-known human rights groups, drew many more applicants than the organisers had hoped for.

Q&A: Singing to a Political Beat

If a European rock music fan has just one album by an African artist in his or her collection, there is a higher than average chance it was recorded by Youssou N'Dour. The Senegalese man's status as his continent's most lucrative cultural export was underscored in 2005, when he was the only African to appear at the main Live8 concert in London's Hyde Park, an event that attracted several billion TV viewers, according to its organisers.

AFRICA: Agricultural Extension Work Both Important and Under-valued

At a time of international concern about the future of the world's food supply, it's a comment that gives pause for thought: "I teach university students agriculture and extension but many of them opt for other professions, especially in ICTs, because agriculture is 'for those who haven't gone to school'."

LATIN AMERICA: Eliminating Poverty at Low Cost

The success of pioneering efforts to reduce inequality and poverty using relatively few resources has led to an expansion in Latin America of direct aid, targeting the most vulnerable families, especially in rural areas.

CHILE: Environmentalists Withdraw Backing from Government

Twenty-three environmental groups in Chile withdrew their support from President Michelle Bachelet, complaining that she had failed to live up to an agreement they had signed with her during her election campaign.

HEALTH: Malaria Campaigns Ramp Up Focus on Bed Nets

With a million people a year still dying from malaria, the United Nations is leading a new campaign to provide universal coverage of essential malaria control measures - particularly bed nets - in Africa by the end of 2010.

HEALTH-TANZANIA: A Hazardous Route to the Cradle

Tatu Shabani Tumbo's first born was diagnosed with strength-sapping anaemia, and died a toddler. Doctors had no medical explanation for the sudden death of her second child at age one. She then tried to get pregnant a third time, initially without success.

AFGHANISTAN: Global Emergency Triggers Food Riots

In the teeming, dense flour bazaars of Kabul, it's hard not to miss the anger.

EUROPE: Subsidies Feeding Food Scarcity

European subsidies for agriculture are contributing to rapidly rising food prices and the destruction of small-scale farming in the South, experts say.

LATIN AMERICA: Can Rising Food Prices Help Small Family Farms?

Rising global food prices could represent an opportunity for the development of small-scale family farming if national governments provide effective support as part of long-term policies, say experts from various agencies.

Q&A: “Transgenic Seed Companies Lie and Bribe”

Biotech corporations that developed genetically modified seeds are bribing authorities and carrying out costly advertising campaigns "plagued with lies in order to create monsters that attack life," says Jesús León Santos, an indigenous man who is one of this year's winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize.

DEVELOPMENT: Farmers, Consumers Squeezed by Middlemen

With global grain stocks at record lows and soaring prices for agricultural products, new attention is being paid to which farming methods are best poised to meet global food needs.

NICARAGUA: A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall

Having been hit by three hurricanes and 25 tropical storms in less than 10 years, Nicaragua is looking ahead to the next rainy season, due to begin in May, with wariness and trepidation.