After decades of debate, the United States is poised to build its first new nuclear reactors since the early 1970s.

A report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on press freedom around the world in 2009 depicts an especially gloomy situation in the Middle East and North Africa, where authorities continue to use repressive measures to muzzle journalists.

'I will never have anything to do with women since I have been diagnosed to have a killer disease.' It is not clear how Muhammad Jungudo (17) contracted HIV, but he suspects it happened at a local barber shop where the implements used for shaving are rarely sterilised. And knowing how he contracted the virus is important. At least it was to Jungudo’s family.

'I've been working in the streets since I was a girl. My parents didn't send me to school, so it's really hard for me to find a job,' says Carol Orozco, 31, who forms part of the veritable army of vendors hawking their wares on the streets of Central America.

A political initiative to eliminate discrimination against the Alevi, Turkey’s main religious minority, risks being stymied by the Diyanet, the country’s powerful religious body that does not recognise anything but Sunni Islam.

Ecologists in Guatemala see a recent ruling by Canada's Supreme Court, which ordered Canadian mining companies to carry out rigorous environmental assessments, as a positive precedent that could help improve environmental controls over the mining industry in this Central American country.

Fresh from a whirlwind tour of non-stop meetings at the World Economic Forum in Davos and a U.N .investor summit on climate risk attended by George Soros, Al Gore, and 500 of the world's most powerful institutional and private investors, Mindy Lubber has a full plate.

Social protection programmes could help alleviate poverty in the Pacific Islands region, but without the help of developed countries, they will not materialise, said an economic expert in this capital of Fiji.

The United Nations’ cultural agency, UNESCO, and the government of Haiti have joined forces to try to safeguard and protect the Caribbean nation’s artistic heritage in the wake of the Jan. 12 earthquake which destroyed not only countless lives but also many national art treasures.

Fifteen-year-old Cho Cho Thet knows little about the world outside of the garments factory where she works.