RIGHTS-ZIMBABWE: “I’m Ready to Stand in Front of the Gun and be Shot”

A coalition of more than 200 African and international civic groups has called on the United Nations and African Union to press for an end to evictions and demolitions that have left people across Zimbabwe homeless.

URUGUAY: Crisis Years Saw Rise in Poverty, but also Software Exports

The third Human Development Report on Uruguay by the UNDP addresses the country from two apparently conflicting perspectives: the economic and social impoverishment registered in recent years, and the potential for an economy based on innovation and knowledge.

BOLIVIA: Dinosaur Tracks Rewrite Palaeontology

The more than 5,000 dinosaur footprints discovered in Cal Orko, in southern Bolivia, have prompted a reconstruction of the planet's history and a correction of the science about these gigantic animals that dominated the landscape until some 65 million years ago, when they disappeared from the face of the Earth.

HEALTH-INDIA: Ayurveda Under Attack from Modern Medicine

As ayurveda, India's ancient herbal system of longevity and health revives in popularity it is coming under fire from the practitioners of modern allopathic medicine who accuse it of quackery and its preparations of being loaded with toxic metals and even steroids.

ENVIRONMENT: The Blue Gold Rush Begins

The battle over environmental resources is now plumbing new depths, right to the bottom of the oceans.

HEALTH-BRAZIL: Hope in Stem Cells for Thousands of ‘Weak’ Hearts

Some four million people with serious cardiac disorders stand to benefit if a three-year Brazilian medical study of stem cell therapy is successful.

ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Calls to Ban GM Crops Intensify After Rats Suffer

Environmentalists and food security activists in India have renewed calls for a moratorium on genetically modified (GM) foods and crops after rats reportedly secretly tested with GM corn diets by the U.S. agribusiness and biotech giant Monsanto developed blood and organ abnormalities.

ENVIRONMENT-MEXICO: Nobel Laureate Has an Equation for Optimism

Air quality, climate change and the ozone layer are variables in an equation that humans have been toying with, so much so that we have endangered our very future, Mexican scientist Mario Molina, 1995 winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, said in a conversation with Tierramérica.

MIDEAST: Rehabilitation for Retired Child Camel Jockeys Gets Top Priority

Just as some governments in the Middle East are trying to stamp out the age-old practice of using child camel jockeys, they are also taking steps to deal with the physical and psychological abuses suffered by the children.

ENVIRONMENT: China’s Second ‘Great Leap Forward’ With GM Crops?

China is under mounting pressure to approve the commercial release of genetically modified rice but Beijing's leaders fear the social cost and potential international backlash might cancel out economic benefits of the move.

EDUCATION-U.S.: Hearings on Evolution Evoke Famed ‘Monkey Trial’

In the early 1920s, with many in the United States worried about losing traditional values to the secular modernism of jazz, the silver-tongued William Jennings Bryan - three-time Democratic candidate for president - led a fundamentalist crusade to banish Charles Darwin's 1859 theory of evolution from U.S. classrooms.

ENERGY: Japan’s Nuclear Dream Could Be World’s Nightmare

As Japan debates on how to meet its gargantuan energy needs in the 21st century, and whether nuclear power should be in the energy mix, plans to revive its controversial plutonium reprocessing plant at the remote village of Rokkasho-mura in Japan's northern Aomori prefecture has alarmed the global anti-nuclear movement.

LATIN AMERICA: Gene Study Puts Indians on Guard

Scientists involved in the Genographic Project will go in search of the genes of indigenous communities worldwide in a bid to decipher the puzzle of how ancient peoples were disseminated around the planet. But their task will not be easy amidst suspicious Latin American Indians.

MALAYSIA: Banking on Biotechnology – A Disaster in the Making?

There are fears that the Malaysian government is attempting another bad swing in the biotechnology game by welcoming clinical trials outsourced by pharmaceutical giants, where monitoring mechanisms and regulations for research could be relaxed to spawn domestic biotech ventures.

TECHNOLOGY: Developing Countries Not Immune From Cyber Crime – U.N.

When mobile phones in the Philippines, Vietnam and China were attacked by a computer virus in the second half of last year, the world's cyber sleuths realised they were up against a new form of cyber crime.

ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Concern Grows Over New Bt Cotton Approvals.

Environmentalists are alarmed that the Indian government has given approval for more areas to be planted with new varieties of genetically modified Bt cotton, despite farmers suffering huge losses from growing the transgenic crop.

U.S.-EUROPE: Free Zone for Genetically Modified Maize?

The case of a genetically engineered variety of maize that escaped detection by U.S. and European Union authorities for four years illustrates weaknesses in the safety and regulatory systems on both sides of the Atlantic, say critics.

RIGHTS: Groups Come Together to Save Children From On-line Predators

Children's organisations are disturbed that an increasing number of children are being sexually abused on-line. For that reason they have come together to call on technology companies to make the Internet a safer place for kids.

SCIENCE: Invasion of the Poverty-Fighting Nano-Bots

Futuristic nanotechnologies that purify drinking water, produce energy and grow food can benefit poor countries and help to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to a new report.

HEALTH-CUBA: Anti-Smoking Measures and Safer Cigarettes

While Cuba has joined most of the rest of the world in adopting anti-smoking measures, the Caribbean island nation's scientists have also developed a new, less harmful variety of tobacco to lessen the ill effects of this health-threatening habit.

PUERTO RICO: Solar Enthusiasts Celebrate Life "Off the Grid"

The Caribbean island of Puerto Rico is blessed with abundant sunlight, yet its potential for solar energy remains largely untapped. Now, a small but growing number of pioneers are promoting the use of photovoltaic solar panels as part of a broader strategy of renewable energy and sustainable development.