by Maude Barlow, Ecological Options Network, USA - At Klimaforum 09 in Copenhagen Council of Canadians founder and Special UN Advisor on Water Maude Barlow talks about the planetary water crisis, the fight for the soul of the UN General Assembly and what to do about it.

by Teresa Bo, Al Jazeera, Qatar - Haiti is one of the the poorest countries in the world. One out of eight children there dies before reaching the age of five.

by Susanna Thorpe, WRENmedia, UK - Mamadou Goita was interviewed at the Salzburg Global Seminar by Susanna Thorpe, of WREN Media. The Salzburg Global Seminar partnered with the Institute of Development Studies and the Future Agricultures Consortium, bringing together stake holders from around the globe, to work on the challenges facing Africa regarding agriculture and farming.

by Shona Bhattacharyya, France 24, France - Twenty-three years ago, 4,000 people died after one of the reactors of Chernobyl's atomic plant exploded. A new steel sarcophagus, built in part by French company Bouygues, is due to cover the damaged reactor in 2012.

by Aurore Cloe Dupuis, France 24, France - Almost 2,400 people were executed last year, human rights group Amnesty International said in its annual report on the death penalty. Despite the figures, Amnesty saw positive signs of a "steady progress towards complete abolition".

by Yvonne Ndege, Al Jazeera, Qatar - One year has passed since Kenya's leaders signed a peace deal to end post-election violence that killed at least 1,000 people.

by Eve Irvine, Willy Bracciano, France 24, France - Police fired tear gas on roadblock-burning protestors in Guadeloupe late Monday, while looters smashed shops in the capital Pointe-a-Pitre. A month-long general strike has crippled the French Caribbean island.

by Haru Mutasa, Al Jazeera, Qatar - Zimbabwe, mired in disease and hunger, inflation beyond calculation and political crisis, keeps on spiraling downward.

by Carla Westerheide and Marion Gaudin, France 24, France - Hundreds of Rwandan troops entered the Democratic Republic of Congo Tuesday to join the hunt for Rwandan rebels at the heart of more than a decade of instability in the region.

by Michelle Carlile-Alkhouri, Reuters, UK - With 2.5 billion people around the world living without a toilet, sanitation experts are pushing to get this most basic need onto the political agenda.

by Wahleah Johns, Melinda Yazzie, Lilian Hill, Black Mesa Water Coalition, USA - "Our way of life is at jeopardy. The majority of the people that live out there on the Rez don’t have running water, nor electricity, but we supply southern California, Nevada, and parts of Arizona with all of their energy needs. You go behind the hill from Peabody and people still have to haul water for their livestock, for their farmlands, for their food, for ceremonies. It’s something that I think that should have been done a long time ago by our leaders, to take a stand."

by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, Brave New Films, USA - In all the talk about the supposed "Bradley effect" in this year's presidential election, I think big media have missed the much bigger story, which is to say few of them are writing/broadcasting about "The Huxtable Effect."

The Huxtable Effect, as I've coined it, speaks to the importance of images in popular culture -- TV, movies, music, books, etc. -- and formation of both a sense of self in viewers and, most importantly for our discussion now, a sense of others.

by Dayo Olopade, The New Republic, USA - How a group of environmental activists in the Bronx is changing the color of green.

New York Times Video, USA - Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network and Eric Posner of the University of Chicago Law School debate whether politicians can convince Americans to go green.