CHALLENGES 2006-2007-HAITI: Int’l Promises Yet to Bear Fruit

Take a stroll through downtown Port-au-Prince today and you'll find a city that, even by Haitian standards, is in a desperate state.

ENVIRONMENT: An Organic Recipe for Development

Organic agriculture is a potent tool to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, but also to alleviate poverty and improve food security in developing countries, many experts now believe.

HEALTH: Asian Govts Push Generic Drugs

In moves that are winning them praise, two South-east Asian governments - in Thailand and the Philippines - appear determined to push ahead with plans to provide cheaper generic drugs even if they incur the wrath of pharmaceutical giants.

ARGENTINA: Residents Rebel Against Apartment Towers

Upset by the multiplication of apartment towers in neighbourhoods of mostly single-family dwellings, residents in Buenos Aires are calling for a halt to a wave of construction that threatens to push water and sanitation services to the brink of collapse and leave the city without green spaces.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM-KENYA: A Race to Leave Informal Settlements Behind

Come the 2007 World Social Forum (WSF), to be held in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi next month, many delegates will doubtless be seen running to and from various events. Some may also be running for an event, however: the 'Marathon for Basic Rights: Another World is Possible Even for Slum Dwellers'.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Lesotho Edging Towards Education MDG

Lineo* lost her father when she was about to start school and just after her unemployed mother had become blind. When friends of the 15-year-old went to their first classes in 1999, she had to cope with grief at the death of her father while also having to take care of her blind mother.

DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Job Guarantee Plan Upsets Rural Pecking Order

A new law guaranteeing rural employment may be changing centuries-old power relations in India's villages. Dirt-poor villagers, denied work or cheated, have dared defy local authorities and testify against them in a people's court attended by top government officials.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Malawi On Track to Meet Child Mortality MDG

Looking at Patience Ziyenda, 37, one would say that she is a jovial woman. But deep inside, Patience is sad. She is among the many women in Malawi who have been struck by the catastrophe of child mortality.

POLITICS-NEPAL: Women Push for Space in Peace Plans

Government and Maoist leaders holding high-level talks to finalise Nepal's interim constitution have discovered they have one thing in common: none of them can say that at least a third of their party workers are women.

DEVELOPMENT-MAURITIUS: “MDGs Are Only for Poor Africans”

Six years after the launch of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), many Mauritians still know nothing about them. Some have heard about the goals but are unsure of their significance. Others believe such initiatives concern only poor countries in Africa because "things are different on the small island state".

/UPDATE*/KENYA: On the Move Towards Improved Health Care

In the Mile 46 area of Kajiado in southern Kenya, roads are few and public health facilities sorely lacking. This creates several problems, not least with the immunisation of children against tuberculosis, polio and measles.

AFRICA: A Continent of Orphans

War, AIDS, malaria, cholera and famine have gradually turned Africa into a continent full of orphaned children and teenagers.

BANGLADESH: Army Deployment May Wreck Polls

Bangladesh President Iajuddin Ahmed's action calling out the army to maintain law and order 45 days ahead of elections on Jan. 23 may result in a boycott of the polls by a 14-party alliance led by the powerful Awami League party of former premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed.

PERU: Gasping for Clean Air in La Oroya

A grey blanket of smog hangs over the mining town of La Oroya high up in the Andes in Peru, where several generations have suffered the effects of the lead dust and toxic fumes spewed out by a giant smelting complex.

BRAZIL: Rainwater Tanks a Weapon Against Drought

The impoverished population of the Brazilian Northeast, one of regions most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, is preparing for long-term coexistence with drought, through various projects such as the construction of one million tanks to collect rainwater.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Will New UN Chief Stand Up to Big Powers?

When South Korea's former foreign minister Ban Ki-moon assumes duties as the new U.N. secretary-general on Jan. 1, he will succeed Kofi Annan of Ghana who spent over 44 years in the U.N. system, serving the last 10 years (1997-2006) as the chief administrative officer of the 192-member world body.

DEVELOPMENT: A Vicious Circle of Sexism and Deprivation

Millions of children across the world will continue to suffer from lack of food, healthcare and education as long as their mothers are forced to live with abusive conditions at home and discrimination in the workplace, according to a major new study released here Monday.

ENVIRONMENT-SOUTH AFRICA: Concerns Over Nuclear Plans Unheeded

Despite recent controversies over the Koeberg nuclear power plant near Cape Town, locals in the coastal city have shown little resistance to the South African government's plan to build another nuclear reactor on their doorstep.

HEALTH: Corruption in Pharmaceutical Industry Kills

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is undertaking one of its toughest new assignments: taking on a powerful adversary in the world's multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry.

HEALTH-NEPAL: Mobile Camps Treat Uterine Prolapse

While women in the capital Kathmandu fight for representation on the political bodies designing the 'new Nepal', in the remote western region Bhakti Oli has just claimed her right to health care after more than 35 years.

DEVELOPMENT: ACP Nations Opt for Trade on Their Terms

Leaders of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States wrapped up their fifth summit Friday in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum - this after two days of debate over trade relations between the ACP, a 79-member grouping that includes some of the world's poorest nations - and the European Union (EU).