DEVELOPMENT: Threat of Turmoil in the Midst of a Boom

Regional financial cooperation in the developing world can help safeguard poor countries from financial crises, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) says in a new report released Wednesday.

AUSTRALIA: NGOs Have Long Wish List For APEC Summit

As 21 world leaders representing three billion people living in the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) nations meet here, civil society groups are calling for an instant end to poverty, the war in Iraq, and immediate action on climate change.

POLITICS-KENYA: “I Almost Have No Fare to Come Back to Nairobi”

Posters, campaign appearances, radio spots and television adverts: all are essential for winning office in Kenya's general elections, set for December, and all cost money that parliamentary candidates are responsible for raising in this East African country.

BIODIVERSITY: One-Fifth of Local Livestock Risks Extinction

Wild and exotic animals aren't the only creatures facing imminent extinction. Many breeds of indigenous livestock in Africa, Asia and Latin America are now at a risk of entirely disappearing.

RELIGION-INDIA: Mother Teresa&#39s Work With the Dying Lives On

Garishly made-up sex workers hang around the seedy street that leads to ‘Nirmal Hriday’, the home for the dying founded by Nobel peace laureate Mother Teresa, in a portion of an abandoned temple to the Hindu demon-slaying goddess Kali.

RIGHTS-BRAZIL: ‘Quilombos’ Fight Exclusion

More than a century after the abolition of slavery, Brazil still has small remnant "quilombos", free settlements created by fugitive African slaves in the 17th and 18th centuries.

PERU: Little Help for Slum-Dwellers Left Homeless by Quake

"We have come here because God sent us," says pastor Pedro Leyva Díaz. He looks tired after distributing food, clothes and sweets in dozens of poor communities devastated by the earthquake in southern Peru.

BOLIVIA: Unequal Battle Against Hunger

In the crowded Bolivian barrio of Achachicala, Salvation Army pastors and volunteers are fighting malnutrition by feeding 500 children on less than 50 cents of a dollar per meal.

ASIA: War Footing Needed to Fix Water, Sanitation Issues

Government officials, sanitation experts, funding agencies and civil society representatives are unanimous that Asia’s water delivery and sanitation problems should be tackled with the same urgency as disaster relief.

HEALTH-GHANA: Boreholes That Proved a Lifeline Have Come at a Cost

Ask people to list the causes of tooth discolouration and they may mention tobacco chewing, or one too many cups of coffee a day. Pose the question in Ghana's northern Nayorigo village, however, and someone might answer: desertification.

TRINIDAD: Condom Machines the Latest Front in AIDS War

Among the frequently asked questions on the website of the National AIDS Coordinating Committee (NACC) in Trinidad and Tobago is one dealing with the use of condoms in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

ARGENTINA: Expansion of Agricultural Frontier Endangers Native Communities

Encroached upon by the expanding agricultural frontier and facing the indifference of the state, indigenous communities in the northeastern Argentine province of Chaco have problems of access to water, food and their natural medicines, and are heading towards extinction.

POLITICS: Murky Future for Rights Treaty on Water

A proposed international treaty to guarantee water as a basic human right has received mixed reviews from experts, environmentalists and political activists.

ENVIRONMENT: Dirt Isn&#39t So Cheap After All

Soil erosion is the "silent global crisis" that is undermining food production and water availability, as well as being responsible for 30 percent of the greenhouse gases driving climate change.

RIGHTS-US: Low-Income Housing on the Chopping Block

Even as people around the United States and the world recall the horrors of Hurricane Katrina two years ago, which displaced tens of thousands of the Gulf Coast's poorest residents, government-subsidised housing has come under increasing attack by policymakers in the U.S.

MOZAMBIQUE: Water Supplies Still a Pipe Dream at Certain Health Facilities

A swelling crowd of people has gathered at the rural health centre at Monte Xiluvo in Nhamatanda district, in the central Mozambican province of Sofala. Most are mothers with young children who try to protect themselves from the gusty winds as they wait for their consultation with Caetano Mendosa, the nurse responsible for the centre.

ECONOMY-US: Rural Poverty Stagnates as Uninsured Multiply

Record numbers of people lack health insurance and poverty remains largely unchanged five years after the U.S. economy began clawing its way back from recession.

DEVELOPMENT: EU Parliament May Insist on Health Aid

The European Union's only directly elected body is demanding increased aid for basic health and education in poor countries before it approves next year's budget for the 27-nation bloc.

TRADE-CAMEROON: New Study to Bridge Finance Gap of Small Business

Caught in a limbo between larger firms with access to traditional banking-sector finance and micro-credit initiatives designed to help the small enterprises of the very poor, African businesses in the middle have historically been on the wrong side of both extremes when it comes to accessing finance.

TRADE-SENEGAL: Finding Opportunities Through Cheap Chinese Goods

Allées du Centenaire, a neighbourhood in the heart of Senegal’s capital Dakar, may be lacking the trademark red lanterns but in the eyes of locals it is fast becoming the city’s unofficial Chinatown.

HEALTH-INDIA: Activists Will Continue to Push Boycott of Novartis

Activist groups campaigning for affordable drugs will continue their boycott campaign against Swiss pharma major Novartis AG, whose controversial petition arguing that Indian patent laws violated World Trade Organisation (WTO) provisions was rejected by the Madras High Court in southern Chennai city.