The once booming salmon industry in Chile is trying to get back on its feet after the devastating health crisis that cut production in half. But its long-term viability has been called into question.

Opportunistic food traders have been blamed for soaring food prices across the Middle East that have added a financial burden on families observing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

What lives in the world's oceans? Crabs mostly, according to the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year research effort.

Mavis Muchena sits on the veranda of her mud hut, a middle-aged single mother of four with a face worn beyond her years and hands creased from working the soil. She should represent the future of a renewed farming boom in Zimbabwe, but instead she represents its failure.

Dr Geoffrey Kasembeli says he worked almost seven years without a day off: that's how severe the shortage of obstetricians and gynaecologists in Kenya is. A similar situation prevails across the continent, a symptom of the weakness of reproductive health care in Africa.

When Timothy was forced into the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) at age 11, the first thing they did was beat him. Then they took him to a military base where his tasks were to carry other soldiers’ bags, wash their clothes, collect firewood for them, and cook their food.

Banita’s heart sank when she first saw her prematurely born twin girls. One weighed 500 grammes and the other 700 grammes, both way below the 2.5-kilogramme benchmark for low-birthweight newborns. But their clenched, coin-sized fists seemed to show they were clinging to life. 'There is hope,' said the local doctor.

Small-scale agriculture based on the principles of solidarity and cooperation is the only way to guarantee food sovereignty in Latin America, said peasant and indigenous activists meeting in the Paraguayan capital this week.

'I used to work on the south coast, cutting sugar cane, and I would go all the way to Belize to pick oranges during the harvest. I went through a lot so we could get by,' Héctor Pan, a Q'eqchi Indian in Guatemala who has now abandoned farming to become a river rafting guide, told IPS.

Public safety is the top concern of Mexico's civil society organisations, but shortage of money is hampering their work, according to a study released this week in the capital.