PAUCARÁ, Peru -- Although Huancavelica is the poorest region of Peru, it has more than just poverty, malnutrition and unmet needs. There are also women using their creativity, efforts and traditional indigenous knowledge to improve the diets of their families and communities.

BHUBANESWAR, India -- At dawn, 65-year-old Indian share farmer Gundicha Rout goes to the stone water trough in his backyard to wash his face and prepare for paddy husking. He reaches out for the water, dipping into a thin film of oil on its surface. As he swishes the water in his mouth, there is a bitter metallic taste.

GUATEMALA CITY -- Human rights groups are worried that the declassification of military archives dating from Guatemala´s 1960-1996 civil war, which left more than 200,000 victims, by a special commission will not go far enough in terms of clarifying the atrocities.

MANAGUA -- The Nicaraguan state has embarked on an iron-fisted policy, including the use of military force, to clamp down on those responsible for environmental depredation, after repeated denunciations by organisations and government officials that the country´s two largest biosphere reserves are being plundered.

SALVADOR, Brazil -- One of the greatest challenges facing the world today is to attend to the urgent social needs of the planet’s population, and particularly the one billion people living "on the brink of survival", while dealing with the equally urgent demands of the environment.

LAKES ENTRANCE, Australia -- Victoria Police is involved in a fresh racism row after an officer was heard describing Gippsland´s Aboriginal community as "coons".

ATLANTA -- A historic ruling earlier this month on behalf of felons who lost the right to vote could call into question the disenfranchisement of felons and ex-felons in the State of Washington and indeed across the United States.

RIO DE JANEIRO -- In-mid January, the United Nations issued its first World Report on the condition of the indigenous peoples, which have made progress and won recognition internationally but not at the national and local level, where their demands remain unmet.

BANGKOK -- A report exposing the spreading opium fields in the north-eastern corner of the military-ruled Burma has brought to light an equally revealing story. It was produced by a team of Palaung women who risked their lives to document the heroin-filled world they inhabit.

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil -- The World Social Forum (WSF) "changed our lives," although it continues to be "machista," with men significantly outnumbering women in its organisation and almost all discussion panels, commented Nalu Farias, coordinator in Brazil of the World March of Women.

COLOMBO -- Now that the electorate has given its verdict, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s victory in the just concluded presidential polls sends an ominous signal to the minority people of the island state.

KHAGRACHHARI, Bangladesh -- A key leader of the Chittagong Hill Tracts - the tribal area of south-eastern Bangladesh - has narrowly escaped injury in a gun attack.

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil -- In the societies of the future, young people may not start to work until the age of 25, there will be lifelong education for everyone, with university graduation as the starting point rather than the end goal, while working hours could be reduced to 12 hours a week for all.

SAN SALVADOR -- Environmental activists in El Salvador allege that managers of a gold mine owned by a Canadian corporation are implicated in the murders of three anti-mining activists.

LA PAZ -- Evo Morales began his second term as president of Bolivia by swearing in a cabinet made up of an equal number of women and men - unprecedented in this South American nation with a strong patriarchal tradition.

CHITTAGONG HILLS TRACT -- The ‘Peace Accord’ of 1997 between the indigenous Jummas who live in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and Bengali settlers and the army has failed to stem the conflict between these groups. Reports of torture, rape, land grabbing and intimidation continue to emerge.

NEW DELHI -- While the BASIC bloc countries - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - will submit their plans for voluntary mitigation actions by the Jan. 31 deadline stipulated by the Copenhagen Accord, they have taken care to emphasise that the agreement, reached at the end of the December climate change summit in the Danish capital, has no legal basis.

LONDON/MADRID/PARIS -- Protestors gathered in London, Madrid and Paris today to oppose the destruction of land belonging to one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes.

LIMA -- The high price of gold has drawn thousands of miners to a region of south-east Peru, but deforestation and the high levels of mercury used in mining has led to fears of an imminent ecological disaster.

PARIS -- Words are not enough to stop the rapidly unraveling web of life, agreed heads of state and international conservation organisations at a high-level meeting that ended here last Friday.

LONDON -- Director James Cameron received his Golden Globes awards for ‘Avatar’ last Sunday, and revealed one of the central ideas of the film. ‘Avatar asks us to see that everything is connected,” he said in his acceptance speech, ‘All human beings to each other, and us to the earth.”

LONDON -- Following the film ‘Avatar’’s win at the Golden Globes, tribal people have claimed that the film tells the real story of their lives today.

RIO DE JANEIRO -- The World Social Forum (WSF) is only "a tool" and must not be confused with the global movement for another world, says Chico Whitaker, one of the founders of this meeting which is celebrating its tenth year with a seminar to assess its track record Jan. 25-29, in its southern Brazilian place of origin, Porto Alegre.

SANTIAGO -- In its proposed constitutional reform, the Chilean government recognises that the availability of freshwater is a matter of national security. Environmentalists applaud the initiative, but some business groups are worried it will hurt their bottom line.

LIMA -- "The toads have disappeared from the countryside because of climate change, and now there is nothing to control the insects. Now we have to use chemicals to fight pests, and that is killing the soil," says worried Peruvian farmer Julián Pilco.

VANCOUVER ISLAND -- Mainstream Canada and Ahousaht First Nation signed a new protocol agreement on Jan 8, 2010. The protocol guides the principles for working together and establishing a sustainable and mutually beneficial salmon farming operation. This is in the Hahoulthee of the Hawiih, the traditional territory of the Ahousaht, where business practices are conducted in an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable manner.

LIMA -- "I want justice. That will be a kind of peace," says Micaela, a 40-year-old woman from the Andean region of Peru who is a survivor of the sexual violence prevalent during the 1980-2000 civil war. Twenty-five years ago, soldiers assaulted her at a military base and in her own home.

NEW DELHI -- The Indian government’s grant of the final environmental clearance to a Korean giant firm, allowing it to acquire 3,000 acres of ‘forest lands’ in the eastern state of Orissa, has prompted a fresh spate of protests from more than 4,000 families that will be affected by a proposed mining project.