FINLAND: Consumers Demand Responsible Corporate Behaviour

Corporate social responsibility is beginning to influence consumption behaviour in Finland, according to a survey published here this week.

TRADE-AFRICA: COMESA States Urged to Drop Non-Tariff Barriers

Despite the reduction in trade tariffs within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), member states are still grappling with non-tariff barriers which restrict the flow of exports and imports. This is regarded as putting brakes on the improvement of trade volumes in the region.

DEVELOPMENT: ‘Poverty an Issue in Europe Too’

Civil society groups in Central and Eastern Europe want to remind their governments Oct. 17 that poverty exists in their own countries, and not just in those usually considered developing countries.

HEALTH-DRC: A Groundbreaking Television Series Tackles HIV/AIDS

It's a first for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): a Congolese filmmaker directing a television series in Lingala - the most widely spoken language in the country - about HIV/AIDS.

FINANCE: Critics Press IMF on Social Spending

When Dominique Strauss-Kahn takes over as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next month, he will confront demands for the agency to more actively support health and education spending in the world's poorest countries.

GUATEMALA: Concern Over Bill that Would Restrict Definition of ‘Family’

Human rights groups and activists for the rights of sexual minorities have expressed alarm at a draft law that the Guatemalan Congress is preparing to pass, which would eliminate single parents as well as same-sex couples from the official definition of "family."

TRADE: Exports Should Be Priority for African States

The ‘‘Mobilising Aid For Trade: Focussing on Africa’’ high level conference ended this week with admonitions from the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

HEALTH-PARAGUAY: Hopes of Meeting Millennium Goals Slipping Away

In spite of official claims to the contrary, it is becoming less and less likely that Paraguay will meet the health goals the United Nations member countries committed themselves to achieve by 2015, experts say.

ENVIRONMENT-PAKISTAN: Pay-Toilets? When the Walls Are Free?

At a pay-and-use toilet at Karachi’s Civil Hospital, Rustom Ali asserts: "I’m an employee here so why should I pay?" Hari Ram, the 60-year-old caretaker, is too meek to argue and lets Ali in. "Very few people pay," Ram mutters.

PARAGUAY: Hunger Follows Worst Fires in History

Food shortages and hunger in the northern Paraguayan provinces of Concepción and San Pedro have followed the worst fires in this country’s history, which destroyed over one million hectares of crops and forestland and left nearly 50,000 people homeless and eight dead.

HEALTH: Picture a Hunger-Free World

The scene within and outside the United Nations last week was strikingly dissimilar: while more than 140 world leaders were arriving in New York to wine, dine and address the General Assembly, a group of activists was demonstrating outside the U.N. compound for a hunger-free world.

CUBA: Citizen Action Transforming the Barrio

Two women set out nine years ago to help the barrio of Balcón Arimao, on the outskirts of the Cuban capital, tackle its numerous problems through community participation.

Q&A: "The Advice I Give Women Is to Leave Hang-Ups Behind"

For women politicians in Mali, winning a seat in parliament is a tall order - difficult enough with party backing, and possibly harder still without it. But, this didn't stop Haïdara Ichata Cissé from taking her chances as an independent earlier this year.

HEALTH: The Quiet Scandal of 10 Million Deaths

A global coalition of governments and organisations has launched a new campaign to drastically improve pre- and post-natal healthcare in places like India, which alone accounts for a staggering 25 percent of the world's child deaths and 20 percent of maternal deaths.

AFRICA: Aid For Trade Could Help Producers in Poor Countries

Agricultural exporters in poor nations need funds and technical assistance to comply with food safety norms in order to boost their share of world trade, according to World Trade Organization (WTO) representatives.

ENVIRONMENT: Conservation Expands in Latin America

In the past 10 years the size of protected areas in Latin America has nearly doubled and the participation of local communities in their preservation and management has sharply increased, says a regional study provided exclusively to Tierramérica.

ENVIRONMENT-PAKISTAN: Residents Solve Own Sanitation Woes

Unlike his neighbours in the opposite lane, Muhammad Salam lets his children play out in the street without the slightest worry.

POPULATION-PHILIPPINES: Manila Women to Fight Ban on Contraceptives

Lourdes Esplana-Osil has seven children, all born within a space of 12 years. Warned by her doctor of complications from repeated pregnancies, she started using injectable contraceptives provided free at a local government health centre.

ENVIRONMENT-LATIN AMERICA: Unsustainable Development

Latin America is blessed with the greatest biodiversity on the planet, but its model of economic development, based on intensive exploitation and export of natural resources, destroys ecosystems and even protected areas, while governments do nothing to halt the despoliation.

RIGHTS: &#39No Safe Cities Without Justice&#39

The urban poor are the worst affected by crime, natural disasters and insecurity, says the Global Report on Human Settlements published by UN-HABITAT on World Habitat Day Monday.

ECUADOR: Correa Wins Majority in Constituent Assembly

The landslide victory for Ecuador’s governing Movimiento Alianza País in the election for a constituent assembly to rewrite the Ecuadorean constitution has cleared the way for the foundations to be laid for a "solidarity economy."