News headlines in 2011, page 58

For the women who participated in the political and social revolutions during the Arab Spring in 2011, there is a significant opportunity to enact real change for women's roles and relationships in the region - and also the possibility things could go the other way.

In Mbedza village, a remote rural community in southern Malawi, Fedson Feston beams an infant’s awkward smile and swings his tiny arms up towards the face of his mother. Four months old, Fedson is too young to know how lucky he is to be alive.

At 19, Liz Sandra Falcón had never imagined that every decision she made could have an impact beyond her own life: not only on people close to her, but on Cuban society itself, and even — although it might seem like an exaggeration — on global tendencies.

African heads of state have ambitious plans to create a free trade zone, encompassing 26 countries and more than 600 million people on the continent. But economic experts warn the project is a bold step that comes with a plethora of legal, administrative and political hurdles. Others suggest the plan might be a pie in the sky.

While the 20 heads of state of the Group of 20 (G20) industrialised and emerging countries gather in southern France to deliberate on the future of the global economy — particularly the crises unfolding in the Eurozone — pockets of activists are amassing around the summit to make their voices heard.

The scars on the pilings adjacent to the new Emergency Ferry Docking Facility here are still visible, graphic evidence of the devastation caused by Hurricane Luis when it hit Antigua and Barbuda in 1995.

News that the government of South Africa was inspired by Brazil's health system in setting up its own universal coverage scheme might meet with scepticism in this South American country.

Inspired by the movement for real democracy and people's power that has spread to hundreds of cities around the world, young Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro have created their own version of 'Occupy Wall Street', dubbed 'Occupy Rio'.

Despite the threat cadmium poses to health and the environment, Mexico has no plan to reduce the use of the heavy metal in the production of toys and industrial products like batteries and fertiliser.

Guiding the transition from one cycle of development to another is among of the most daunting tasks in politics, but Brazil achieved this with the launch in January 2003 of the Zero Hunger programme, which spurred job creation while restoring the buying power of the minimum wage, writes Jose Graziano da Silva, Director-General elect of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). He will assume the position in January 2012.