ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Water Aplenty, Nor a Drop to Drink

Over 37.7 million people in India are affected by water-borne diseases due to contaminated drinking water supply and an estimated 1.5 million children die of diarrhoea each year, according to newly available statistics.

RIGHTS: Development Financing Still Gender-Blind

When the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) held a special high-level meeting to discuss the new challenges facing the international community, the focus was largely on the credit crisis, rising commodity prices, declining development aid and the devastating impact of climate change on developing nations.

LATIN AMERICA: Activists Call for Urgent Land Reform

An urgent call to speed up the land reform process in Latin America was issued Thursday by rural activists at the 30th FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, who also sharply criticised agribusiness interests and large estates in the region.

ELECTIONS-PARAGUAY: Indigenous Woman on Course for Senate

An indigenous woman has an excellent chance of winning a seat in Congress for the first time in the history of Paraguay, in Sunday’s general elections.

Q&A: "I Will Give the Big Boys a Run For Their Money"

She's made her mark in the history books by becoming one of only three women to contest the presidency in Kenya; but, Nazlin Umar won't be taking up residence in State House, at least not during the current political term.

HAITI: Food Crisis Sparks Anger and Despair

A green, red and yellow-striped umbrella is all that keeps Hernite Joseph from the searing sun as she takes apart a frozen chicken with a screwdriver and places the small pieces into neat piles stacked three high.

POLITICS: Democracy Unfinished

A new report by the Geneva-based Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) has shown that women are changing the priorities and sometimes the tone of legislatures around the world. But, it also highlights the slow pace at which the number of parliamentary seats held by women is increasing.

CHILE: Fishermen Clash Over Pulp Mill Waste Pipeline

A group of mainly Mapuche indigenous fisherfolk opposed to the installation of a pipeline to dump waste from the Celulosa Arauco y Constitución (Celco) paper pulp mill into the ocean in southern Chile complain that they have been the target of attacks by other fishermen who reached an agreement for a payout from the company.

LATIN AMERICA: Food or Fuel – That Is the Burning Question

The difficult balancing act between fighting hunger, producing biofuels and defending the environment is at the centre of the debate at the 30th Regional Conference of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in the Brazilian capital.

DEVELOPMENT: Reinventing Agriculture

The results of a painstaking examination of global agriculture are being formally presented Tuesday with the release of the final report for the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).

Q&A: "Increase Agricultural Productivity While Reducing the Environmental Footprint"

Over the past few years, Robert Watson has had what must qualify as one of the world's tougher assignments: heading an initiative to help agriculture cope with the substantial challenges it faces presently, and the even bigger hurdles ahead.

ITALY: New Govt Asked to Deliver on Development

Civil society groups are asking the new Italian leadership to prioritise official development aid. Italy's credibility is at stake, they say.

DEVELOPMENT: Global Hot Spots of Hunger Set to Explode

As food prices continue to escalate worldwide, some of the poorest nations in the developing world are in danger of social and political upheavals.

HEALTH-AUSTRALIA: Vaccine Therapies Need Boost – Scientists

While millions of children’s lives have been saved as a result of a successful worldwide campaign to boost vaccination programmes, governments across the world are failing in following through on their commitments to health aid and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Q&A: "I Don&#39t Consider Myself a Loser in Any Way"

In the run-up to Kenya's Dec. 27 general elections, IPS touched base with legislative candidate Pamela Mburia on several occasions to discuss the challenges she was facing in her campaign. Ultimately, Mburia did not win the Eastern Province seat of Nithi that she contested, so this week we decided to join her again to look back on lessons learned.

DEVELOPMENT: Family Planning Gets Mere Sliver of Aid Pie

The United Nations warns that a sharp decline in international funding for reproductive health is threatening global efforts to reduce poverty, improve health and empower women worldwide.

VENEZUELA: Bari People Left Without Land by Oil, Cattle, Coal

For 900 years, Barí indigenous hunters roamed freely throughout a vast region in western Venezuela. "Now they want to sentence us to die by locking us up in this corral, watching the white man get rich by destroying the land that used to be ours," says schoolteacher Conrado Akambio.

VIETNAM: No Rice Shortages – Merely Price Hikes

Nguyen Trung Thanh sits on a blue plastic stool in Cho Mo Market, in Hanoi’s Hai Ba Trung district. A rice seller for the past 10 years, he has seen no recent drop in custom, despite recent price hikes. ‘’But the buyers really complain so much,’’ he tells IPS.

UGANDA: “God Should Be So Kind That I Can Have Contraceptives”

For many of Africa's women, getting access to family planning services is difficult at the best of times. When war intervenes they can find themselves without any services at all, even as they become more vulnerable to sexual violence - the situation in northern Uganda being a case in point.

DEVELOPMENT-CHINA: Swinging Back to Food Self-Sufficiency

Chinese leaders are confronting spiralling global food prices with a return a long-term policy of self-sufficiency in agriculture. But the country’s urbanisation process is chipping away at arable land and sucking the rural labour force into the cities.

DEVELOPMENT: Food Shortages an Emergency – FAO Chief

Jacques Diouf, director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), on Wednesday described spiralling food prices as an "emergency" that demanded concerted global attention.