News headlines in 2011, page 49

The progress made since the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference in our understanding of environmental issues and our capacity to address them effectively is impressive. Unfortunately, the lack of sufficient progress in the implementation of the commitments made by governments at the 1992 Earth Summit have left us on a course that is unsustainable and indeed threatens the future of humankind, writes Maurice Strong, Senior Adviser to the Secretary-General of Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.

Microcredit has reached a turning point in recent years: the sector is undergoing a major reevaluation of its objectives, and there is a raging theoretical and practical debate over its effects. The dramatic cases of nonpayment and arrears that have appeared in the media in recent months demonstrate that microcredit programmes that are badly run or fail to adequately calibrate risk can become an obstacle to emerging from poverty, writes Soraya Rodriguez Ramos, Secretary of State for International Cooperation and President of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development.

Will Rizana Fathima Nafeek return to this poverty-ridden coastal village in Sri Lanka alive and in one piece? Or will the beheading sentence passed on her by a Saudi Arabian court in 2007 be finally carried out?

Representatives of the Brazilian federal and municipal governments and of indigenous, black and riverbank communities and other groups that make the population of this country so diverse assumed a commitment to fight for 'the human right to an adequate diet.'

China plans to send armed patrol boats down the Mekong River and assert its authority over a corner of Southeast Asia infested by warlords and drug traffickers.

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.

Tunisian women poured into the streets armed with the vote, their latest weapon, when the country voted in its first democratic election since a popular uprising unseated former president Zine Abidine Ben Ali, ending his 27-year- long stronghold on the country.

Collecting the monthly subscriptions for her co-operative has always been a headache for Thelma Nare, 41. This is because Nare lives in Tshitshi, Plumtree in rural Zimbabwe, about 60 kilometres away from the humdrum of the nearest town centre where banks are located.

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.

On Nov. 2, the day of Occupy Oakland's General Strike, the streets were filled with chants and music and the sounds of people speaking in the many tongues of Oakland residents.