Fresh Air for the Rio Olympics

Environmental authorities in this southeastern Brazilian city are installing more air quality control stations in the locations where competitions are to be held during the 2016 Olympic Games, so that air pollution will not hurt the athletes’ performance.

The Industrialisation of Africa’s Smallholder Agriculture

Africa’s smallholder farmers, who contribute 80 percent of food and agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa and much of the world’s food supply, are being encouraged by big business, governments and NGOs to become less subsistence based and more entrepreneurial by tailoring production to market forces.

Thousands Orphaned by Poverty in Kashmir

Seventeen-year-old Afzal is an unusual orphan. Though his father died many years ago, his mother is still alive and living with Afzal’s grandparents and younger siblings in a house not far from the orphanage where the boy has spent most of his teenage years.

Funding Shortage Thwarts Reconstruction Efforts

The landscape in northern Sri Lanka’s former war zone can change abruptly from the ordinary to the surreal.

Africa’s Mobile Health Revolution

A nurse working in a remote clinic in Mueda, a small town in northern Mozambique’s Makonde Plateau, receives a shipment of vaccines from the national health department. Using special software on her mobile phone, she sends out a mass text message to alert mothers in the area about the availability of immunisations.

Q&A: “It’s Time to Wage War on Homophobia”

For more than two decades, the internationally beloved singer and human rights activist Yvonne Chaka Chaka has been at the forefront of the South African pop music scene.

Salvaging Waste Food for the Hungry in Spain

A recurring question in crisis-stricken Spain is how to ensure that surplus agricultural products reach those most in need. One response is citizen initiatives to protest the waste of food and to advocate efficient management along the full length of the food chain.

New Patient Profile and Treatment for Chagas Disease

Chagas disease, the third most serious infectious disease in Latin America, is developing a “new face” and moving into urban areas, while a new treatment may offer hope for millions of sufferers.

The Politics of Polio in Pakistan

The murder of nine health workers vaccinating children against polio in Pakistan’s northwest cities of Peshawar and Charsadda in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, and its southern port city Karachi, have elicited shock and outrage.

Forests, Fruit and Fish Could Save Coastal Communities

Scientists predict that in the coming years, Bangladesh will be battered by even more climate disasters than it has already endured. Global warming has caused devastating damage in this lower Himalayan delta country of 150 million people, where seawater intrusion, increasingly intense cyclones, dried up rivers and extreme weather events have become the norm.

Colombian Landowners, Peasants Listen to Each Other

Colombia's large-scale agricultural producers and peasant farmers managed to listen to each other for the first time about the core cause of the decades-long armed conflict: the concentration of rural land ownership and the social and economic development of the countryside.

Girls Fight to Stay in School

Balancing her school bag on one shoulder and holding her three-year-old son by the hand, Farida Haque (19) ignores her in-laws’ complaints and her husband’s frown as she heads each morning for the tiny school in her remote village of Allah Bachayo, located in the Thatta district of Pakistan’s Sindh Province.

Q&A: Fighting to Save Africa’s Richest Rainforest

Protests against a controversial palm oil plantation in the Korup National Park, Africa’s oldest and richest rainforest in terms of floral and faunal diversity, in Mundemba, southwest Cameroon will continue despite the arrests and intimidation of local environmental campaigners.

Community Water Management Stuck in Legal Limbo*

Community-based water supply systems, which serve thousands of rural communities in Mexico, are seeking official recognition under the new federal legal framework currently under development.

Bolivia’s Ayoreo Indians, Devoured by the City

No one knows exactly when they will show up, but when they do, it’s impossible not to notice them. In one of the busiest street markets in this bustling city in eastern Bolivia, a handful of members of the Ayoreo indigenous community periodically take over a portion of the sidewalk.

Q&A: Documentary Tackles Child Abuse in Cuba

“Child abuse merits a different, in-depth approach. The objective of this film is to make the problem visible and promote debate and reflection,” says Eric Corvalán, director of a documentary that required “breaking through walls.”

Big Landowners Block Rural Development Law in Guatemala

An “integral rural development law” to promote access to land, employment and other rights for small farmers is bogged down in the Guatemalan Congress due to opposition from large landowners, who see it as an attempt at land reform.

Deforestation Wreaks Havoc in Guatemala’s Caribbean Region

"Many tourists come to this area for bird watching, but the terrible deforestation is leading to the disappearance of so much of our flora and fauna. The cleared land is used for cattle ranching,” said Haroldo Figueroa, who works as a guide in nature reserves along Guatemala’s Caribbean coast.

Ceasefire Means ‘Nothing’ to Gaza Fishers

Shortly after Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement on Nov. 21, the Israeli navy abducted 30 Palestinian fishers from Gaza's waters, destroyed and sank a Palestinian fishing vessel, and confiscated nine fishing boats in the space of four days.

MDGs a Distant Dream for Nepali Children

Currently classified as one of the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Nepal has one of the highest malnutrition rates globally, with over 41 percent of children suffering from chronic under-nourishment, particularly in rural areas.

Remittances Soothe the Scourge of Militancy

Fifty-nine-year-old Sherdil Shah, a resident of South Waziristan – a hotbed of militancy in northern Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – used to run a modest grain shop that fetched enough money to keep his family of 10 well-fed and looked after.