Embarrassing, damaging or actually helpful? Israeli reactions to the explosive WikiLeaks revelations run the full gamut.

Baptista Macule is sitting on a sack of groundnuts in a dusty side-alley near the sprawling, makeshift Malanga market on the outskirts of Maputo. He squints into the sun as he tries to explain the extent of poverty in his country.

In November, the Food and Agriculture Organisation was just one of many voices warning that food prices have risen to levels last seen at the start of the 2007-2008 crisis. A majority of the countries most exposed to a repeat of that problem are in Africa, where vulnerability to food security is exacerbated by AIDS.

Quan Zhenyuan discovered Buddhism by accident. After the owner of a vegetarian restaurant here in the Chinese capital gave her a book about the religion, she became hooked. Today, Quan is one of a growing number of urban Chinese who turn to Buddhism for spiritual fulfillment.

After first resisting the efforts of human rights and legal advocates, the British government has now backed down and placed an immediate ban on the export of lethal injection drugs to be used in U.S. executions.

Some of the nation's leading human rights groups - who are almost always on the same page - are taking widely opposing positions on the latest Wikileaks document dump of diplomatic cables.

'A dark chapter has come to a close in the history of Oaxaca. A chapter that must never again be repeated,' said lawmaker Flavio Sosa, the head of the social movement that brought this southern Mexican state to its knees for several months in 2006 and was brutally repressed.

Close to 400,000 African children are infected with HIV every year - nearly one in five of these infected during birth or shortly thereafter because their mothers lack access to antiretroviral drugs.

Government spokesperson Dr Mohamed Bakari says Tanzania has contained an epidemic of viral disease that had affected the northern part of the country, mainly around Arusha, since the start of the year.

Lucky for Osman Conteh that one of his aunts disagreed with the family consensus that he had been stricken by an evil spirit. She insisted the twitching, incoherently babbling child be taken to the hospital rather than a witch doctor.