News headlines in 2011, page 47

Actions by the Arab League this week have given a regional seal of approval to Syrian opposition forces and could mark the beginning of the end of the Assad family dictatorship that has ruled Syria for more than 40 years.

Poor families are well aware of the devastating effects of unforeseen expenses on their lives. Microinsurance, a recent microfinance tool, has the potential to limit their vulnerability and combat poverty, experts say.

After two months of holding New York City's Zuccotti Park despite repeated threats of eviction, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) activists were forcibly removed from the site by hundreds of police in riot gear early Tuesday morning.

'This year the freeze killed my crops, our small livestock died, and now I can't even sleep because I'm worried sick thinking about how to put food on my family's table, since I'm a widow,' said Rosaura Huatay, an indigenous farmer in Peru's northern Andes highlands.

As U.S. President Barack Obama sought to make headway on the first significant free trade agreement since NAFTA, a week of demonstrations protested the move.

'We don’t like to talk about our specific goals,' says Cuban virologist María Guadalupe Guzmán, as a subtle way to avoid going into too much detail about the research she is heading up to develop a dengue vaccine.

The creation of co-operatives forms part of the current 'updating' of the Cuban economy, even though no official information has been provided about the expansion of this form of business management, which has already been tested, with mixed results, in agriculture.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s victory for a second term of office has been described as a boon for women despite the controversy surrounding an opposition boycott of the runoff.

While Africa has successfully avoided conflict over shared water courses, it will need greater diplomacy to keep the peace as new research warns that climate change will have an effect on food productivity.

South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo have signed an agreement to build a major hydroelectric power project, which is said to bring electricity to more than half of the continent’s 900 million people. But economic analysts warn foreign investors will prevent the grid from benefiting the general public.