Delegates at the Global People's Forum called for governments to make sure that children have access to health, education and clean water. But for the world's 100 million street children a 2015 implementation date might just be out of reach.

This position is in the Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn (ASB) Programme (www.asb.cgiar.org) whose objective is to identify, develop and implement innovative policies, institutions and technologies that can reduce poverty and conserve tropical forests.

Miatta Sheriff and Maima Kromah are six-year old Liberian children. They have lived for several months in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and have no idea where their parents are. Sheriff and Kromah are among thousands of Liberian children separated from their parents by fighting between government troops and rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) since 1998.

A rupture in a pipeline belonging to oil giant Royal Dutch/ Shell has resulted in a major oil slick in Nigeria’s southern Niger Delta, local residents reported last Friday. Residents of Rumuekpe community, near the Nigeria’s oil industry capital, Port Harcourt, said oil from a broken pipe, 20 inches diameter, was spreading through creeks and streams in the area, seeping into farmland and destroying plants and trees.