The rough road is almost indistinguishable from the mud huts and dilapidated surroundings of this village - still pockmarked by the artillery duels of Sri Lanka’s fierce civil war that ended more than two years ago.

With the majority of international troops expected to withdraw over the next three years, there are growing doubts over donors' commitments to continue to support Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world.

When the G-8 countries, comprising the world’s largest industrialised nations, decided that improving Internet access to developing countries should be a priority, scores of leaders from developing world opposed the move.

Chinese essayist Zhou Zuoren once wrote that China should be experienced on a small wooden boat slowly gliding on its rivers, taking in its views. But arriving in Shanghai on the country's most advanced high-speed railway leaves little doubt that slow boats are no longer the way to romanticise China of today.

Chinese essayist Zhou Zuoren once wrote that China should be experienced on a small wooden boat slowly gliding on its rivers, taking in its views. But arriving in Shanghai on the country's most advanced high-speed railway leaves little doubt that slow boats are no longer the way to romanticise China of today.

As Daniel Chakunkha and Mussa Abu talk on the side of a dirt path in Makunje village, Malawi, a steady stream of bicycles loaded with charcoal passes by. The men stand at the halfway mark between Mwanza, a small city in the country’s southwest, and Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial hub.

When firefighters arrived to put out a blaze that was engulfing the home of Elise Inversin on the French island of Corsica, the 66-year-old grandmother told firemen to forget about her house and save a neighbouring 900-year-old Mastic tree. The house could be rebuilt, she said.

It happens every day across the globe, with many of its young victims lured by false promises into the world's third most profitable criminal activity. This is human trafficking.

The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4), starting in this port city on Tuesday, will examine why international donor assistance worth trillions of dollars spent over decades has failed to eradicate poverty.

In the western desert state of Arizona, a company called EnviroMission is planning to build a new solar tower, the first of its kind, an ambitious new way to produce energy with heat from the sun.