News headlines in 2011, page 64

Hailed as economically viable and socially responsible, cooperatives have over one billion members worldwide and can be found in sectors ranging from agriculture to finance to health.

In his campaign, President Barack Obama promised to make comprehensive immigration reform a top priority — a pledge mainly directed at Latino voters.

Touseef Bhat’s seven-acre farm in this scenic alpine valley of Bandipora district has an incongruous feature — an electrified barbed wire fence running through it.

While the Occupy movements sweeping the U.S. have become almost synonymous with democracy, consensus-based processes, human microphones and other symbols of unity, many populations in the country have felt isolated by the language and tactics of the movement.

Several major new dams are being constructed on the Niger River. It's a positive sign of growing investment in agriculture and energy, but it also has some observers worried.

As concerns deepen about the quality of education in Zimbabwe, parents can expect an indefinite extension of subsidising teacher salaries as the cash- strapped government struggles to meet the bloated civil service wage bill.

Suleyman and Rasool have come to the University of Bani Walid, in western Libya. If they are lucky they might find some chemistry notes and, perhaps, a computer that works. Unfortunately it is not likely, since NATO reduced the campus to rubble.

'The governments of Central America outline a number of requisites for access to housing, and people don't have the money to meet them,' says Roly Escobar, an activist with a Guatemalan movement of slum dwellers fighting for the right to decent housing.

The adoption of international guidelines to regulate so-called land grabs has been pushed to next year after negotiators failed to agree on conditions for large-scale land investments and enforcement.

Some 200 Wixáritari or Huichol men, women and children travelled 20 hours from western Mexico to the capital to defend their sacred ceremonial sites from silver mining.