ENERGY-U.S./LATIN AMERICA: An OPEC for Ethanol?

U.S. President George W. Bush will visit Latin America next week seeking a strategic alliance with Brazil to develop biofuels - and Venezuela, the region's main oil exporter, is taking this as a warning sign.

TRADE-MEXICO: Staple Foods at Risk from Free Market

When the Mexican government negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), in force since 1994, it estimated that 14 years of safeguards for its maize and beans would be enough time for local production of these crops to become competitive. But things did not work out that way.

JAPAN: GM Soya for Biofuel – Boon for Organic Farmers

Plans in the United States to boost ethanol fuel production using genetically modified (GM) soybeans has raised cautious hopes among local farmers involved in organically grown crops as well as environmental and consumer groups.

ENERGY-CHILE: Home-Grown Biofuels – Big-Time?

The government of President Michelle Bachelet seems determined to develop the biofuels industry in order to diversify Chile's energy sources, in spite of doubts that have arisen about their desirability.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: From the Burkinabe Countryside to Italian Tomato Fields

For Mady Daboné, Europe beckons. "Staying here...is misery," the 30-year-old from the village of Begdo in eastern Burkina Faso told IPS, adding that several of his friends were already abroad. "I have about twenty of them in Italy and Spain. They have all done well, even though they suffered at the beginning."

DEVELOPMENT-BURKINA FASO: Price Snags for Cotton Farmers

Some call it "white gold"; but, the ever-falling price of cotton means that this nickname may end up being more ironic than complimentary. In Burkina Faso cotton producers are, for the first time, facing the prospect of a third consecutive drop in the price of the commodity.

ENERGY-CHINA: Biofuels Eating Into Food Grain Stocks

China's biofuel industry is booming thanks to voracious demand for energy to power the country's high-flying economy. Applying modernised versions of ancient chemical processes to convert crops and oils into energy sources, Chinese entrepreneurs have created a profitable "green business" with plenty of room to grow.

DEVELOPMENT: Turning the Tide on Human Suffering

If the world's growing water crisis remains unresolved - depriving clean water to more than one billion of the world's six billion people - it will jeopardise the U.N.'s longstanding battle to reduce global poverty, hunger and disease by its targeted date of 2015, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) warned Thursday.

MAURITIUS-ECONOMY: Helping the Sugar Industry Regain its Sweetness

The Mauritian government has embarked on a campaign to transform its sugar industry as international sugar prices plunge, leading to a loss in the country's foreign exchange earnings.

ENVIRONMENT-COLOMBIA: The Rain Harvester

Colombian lawyer and activist Rodrigo Vivas won the 2006 Sasakawa Prize, awarded annually by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and The Nippon Foundation, for his "rainwater harvest" project, aimed at combating desertification.

DEVELOPMENT: Report Details Toll Taken by Lack of Water, Sanitation

The 2006 Human Development Report, 'Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis', focuses on the ongoing problems that surround provision of potable water and sanitation. The document is being launched Thursday in Cape Town, South Africa, by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

BOLIVIA: Cochabamba’s ‘Water War’, Six Years On

Six years after the people of Cochabamba reversed the privatisation of the city water company, access to water has improved and rates have been raised only slightly. However, there is still a long way to go.

ECONOMY-IRAN: Gas Guzzlers Get Their Way

Iran is among the world's largest crude oil exporters, but domestic political compulsions have compelled the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to squander oil revenues and pamper motorists with heavily subsidised, imported gasoline.

RIGHTS-MOZAMBIQUE: Citizens Become Judge, Jury and Executioner

With a lack of faith in the police seeming to have escalated in certain suburbs of the Mozambican capital, Maputo, citizens have lately resorted to taking the law into their own hands, and meting out rough justice to alleged criminals. This has resulted in a body count of over 20 since August.

TRADE: ‘Win-Win’ Deals at China-Africa Summit

A flurry of trade deals worth two billion US dollars were signed here during an unprecedented China-Africa summit, aimed at forging closer links with the resource-rich continent. But while talking business China showed susceptibility to criticism that it is behaving like a modern colonial power.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Think Global, Eat Local

It's certainly a logical suggestion: in an effort to make cocoa-producing countries in Africa less dependent on consumers abroad, why not increase domestic consumption of cocoa products?

ENERGY-BRAZIL: Biodiesel Lubricates Social Inclusion

The physic nut tree, which has a lifespan of over 40 years, is resistant to drought and benefits small farmers, is a potential source of biodiesel in Brazil, as is the babassu, a coconut palm from the eastern Amazonian region.

ECONOMY-US: Promise of Biofuels Boom Is Overrated, Report Says

Despite an explosion of private investment in the U.S. liquid biofuels industry, taxpayers are contributing around seven billion dollars a year in subsidies which could be better used for other energy- and environment-saving technologies, according to a major new report released here Wednesday.

ENERGY-ARGENTINA: Efficiency Is the Wave of the Future

How can energy demand be curbed and global temperatures stabilised without sacrificing comfort and productivity? An Argentine non-governmental organisation is trying to come up with an answer, a tailor-made formula for the country to reduce energy consumption by up to 30 percent by 2020.

ENVIRONMENT: Can the Free Market Slow Deforestation?

Tropical forests' ability to store carbon dioxide and mitigate climate change makes them more valuable than alternative uses like pasture or lumber, and rich countries ought to pay tropical countries to preserve their forests, the World Bank says.

CHINA: For Microcredit to Work Gov’t Must Butt Out – Yunus

Celebrating the success of microfinance as an antidote to poverty has raised some uncomfortable questions here over China's reluctance to allow civil society a bigger role in addressing tough social issues.