The Tsissina family's living room is a huge open tent.It's where the older members sit by the fire and tell stories of the past.

• 12/1/09
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The HIV infection rate in Russia is one of the highest in the world, but the authorities suppress the problem. One reason is that three quarters of those infected are drug addicts and they are ostracized by society.The Global AIDS Fund and other foreign organizations are already considering leaving the country.

• 12/1/09
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South Africa still has one of the world's highest HIV infection rates. More than five and a half million people live with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.Poor families in particular are affected and have to cope largely without government support. Self-styled healers and profit-hungry businesses take advantage of their helplessness.

• 12/1/09
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Elzbieta Zieciak is a confectioner and loves her work.She says she could live without bread, but not without cakes. She dreams of travelling to the Caribbean.

• 11/24/09
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Staff Benda Bilili's music style is Congolese rumba with a hint of funk and soul.Their songs tell stories of everyday life in a city that has an estimated 40,000 street children, many of whom are former child soldiers. The band's name Staff Benda Bilili roughly translates as "bring forth the invisible".

• 11/24/09
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We take water for granted in our everyday lives - using it to shower, do the laundry, cook and clean.We also use in less obvious ways: Every piece of paper we write on, every steak we eat and even the clothes we wear also add to our daily water usage.

• 11/17/09
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Alexander from Kenya is 21 years old.He deals in scrap computers and thinks that humanity is globalization's worst enemy.

• 11/17/09
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Promises of education and enough to eat are enough to persuade impoverished rural families in Haiti to hand over their children - usually their daughters - to strangers who live in the cities. They believe their children will fare better there than in rural areas. But the reality usually fails to live up to their expectations:Often, the children end up working more or less as slaves in their new homes. They're known as "restaveks" - from the French for "rester avec" - or to stay with. Alinx Jean-Baptiste coordinates a children's assistance project in Haiti. He tries to convince the 'foster parents' to send their 'restaveks' to school at least for three hours a day.

• 11/17/09
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Sugata Mitra works for NIIT, an Indian company which develops educational software. The Delhi headquarters border on the Kalkaji slum. The two worlds are separated by a wall. Mitra came up with the idea of knocking out a hole in this wall, which marked the start of the project to provide children access to the digital world.In this hole they installed a computer terminal with an internet connection. It quickly became apparent that children with no computer experience and despite the absence of instruction learned very quickly to surf the internet. Hole in the Wall is now a global initiative.

• 11/13/09
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Samuel Lima Santana is 19 years old and drives a motorbike taxi in the federal state of Bahia.He loves pizza and would like to get to know France.

• 11/13/09
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Just how happy are the citizens of any given nation. That's exactly what the Happy Planet Index sets out to discover.Normal economic indices measure GDP. But the HPI measures how content the population is, their life expectancy and the ecological footprint they make. Global 3000 compares 3 countries.

• 11/13/09
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Alida Vracic is 31. She lives in Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina where she manages a think tank.She says the tiny research institute is tasked with analyzing the social, economic and political situation of the country - 16 years after the Yugoslavian conflict.

• 11/13/09
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In the United States, the battle over genetically modified crops is over. Much of America's corn, soybean and cotton production is genetically modified. Farmers across the country's corn belt in the midwest benefit from good harvests. But, they are also making themselves increasingly dependent on the seed producers. One name is sticking out: Monsanto.The agriculture corporation Monsanto is dominating the market, it controls 87 percent of the market. The contracts that Monsanto forces its customers to accept in the US serve as a warning for countries in which Monsanto is now building up a market share.

• 10/29/09
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Eradicating world hunger has been declared one of the priorities for the 21st century. According to the UN, 1.2 billion people will not get enough to eat this year -- the highest number since 1970. While the global economic crisis has made the problem worse, inaction by political leaders is also very much to blame. That's not the case in Belo Horizonte, however.The Brazilian city's Zero-Hunger program has demonstrated how hunger can effectively be ended.

• 10/29/09
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This time we visit the home of Alastair Yates and his family. They live in Teddington, a London suburb. Their living room contains souvenirs from their holidays abroad as well as their son's wooden railway set.Alastair is especially thrilled by the 52-inch television which is mounted on an articulated arm and can be turned in every direction.

• 10/29/09
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Supplying people with clean water is one of the planet's greatest challenges. The community of Ikwezi in South Africa's Eastern Cape province is suffering from extreme water shortages and bad water quality.Anyone needing water here used to have to carry it home arduously from far-away sources. Now, South Africa's first municipal water house has been opened. Now, besides clean drinking water, the 5000 residents have water toilets, showers and wash basins for their clothes - for the first time.

• 10/23/09
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In antiquity mercury was considered a medicine. Today we know how toxic it really is. Only this year did environmental ministers at a UN summit agree to ban its use. But penniless gold miners often either don't know the risks involved or have no other choice but to use the toxic metal.One case is Guyana, in South America. But there the government has passed a law that miners must wear protective clothing while in contact with mercury.

• 10/23/09
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The vast majority of Guatemalans do not pay taxes: some because they can't, and others because they won't. Just 11 percent of the country's revenue is raised through taxes. The public purse is perpetually empty.And the government has huge problems: more than half of Guatemala's children suffer from malnutrition. For years, the state did little to combat the problem. Now a provisional nutrition program has been launched, but it's proving to be not enough to get malnutrition in the country under control.

• 10/18/09
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Faruk Hossain is a hot dog vendor in New York.Originally from Bangladesh, he hopes to earn enough money to return home and do something for his country.

• 10/18/09
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Each year, the World Economic Forum honors up to 300 outstanding personalities in business, politics, science and culture as Young Global Leaders. Global 3000 interviews some of this year's innovators, movers and shakers. Leslie Maasdorp, a financial expert from the British-owned Barclays Capital in South Africa, characterizes the food crisis as one of the biggest global challenges of all time. Christophe Beck worked for more than 10 years for food company Nestlé.

• 10/18/09
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This week the Charda family from Athens, Greece, shows us around their home. They live in a relatively new house with a balcony – and that’s where they spend most of their time.

• 10/18/09
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Across southern and eastern Asia, fewer and fewer girls are being born. In India alone, there have been 10 million cases of female foeticide in the past two decades. The reason: The country's dowry tradition.It's become common practice to demand that a bride's parents pay for a car as dowry. Most families in India struggle to cover the costs that come with having a daughter, while sons are thought to provide financial security for the whole family. Though the long-term effects of gender bias in the country are uncertain, India's government is launching a campaign to address the problem.

• 10/18/09
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A driving force for many migrants is the hope of a better future. It’s unimaginable that seeking a life in a more prosperous country could be worse than staying put, and that’s why enterprises selling hope are so lucrative.But the reality is that many women migrants end up being coerced into forced prostitution. For the first time in the Netherlands, an entire human trafficking ring has been uncovered and brought to trial.

• 10/18/09
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Moldova is a small country, and it’s economically weak, too. The average per capita income is 124 euros a month. Moldova has become a hub for human trafficking. Often, women are promised jobs abroad, but once they get there are forced into prostitution.If they come back, they face stigmatization. La Strada is an organization set up in Chisinau to provide psychological help for the victims of human trafficking and the chance to make a fresh start.

• 10/18/09
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One in two blue-collar workers in the US is an immigrant. Many work in restaurants, nail salons or supermarkets. They’re meant to earn the minimum wage, which is currently $7.25. But employers often pay them far less, or not at all.In the state of New York, the Department of Labor has been working to tighten controls to prevent the exploitation of migrants. But many immigrants are too scared to denounce their employers to the authorities. New York is piloting the Wage Watch scheme, based on the Neighborhood Watch initiative. Groups of people in local communities work with the labor department to improve labor law compliance.

• 10/18/09
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The fifth part of our series takes us to the home of Helen and Kenneth in Oskarshamn, Sweden.For them the living room is their favorite place in the house. Perhaps that unobstructed view over the Baltic Sea has something to do with it.

• 10/18/09
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Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous countries in the world, even more so for the women. Anywhere from 60 to 80 per cent of them are in forced marriages, more than half of those before the girls are 16 years old.The number of females who suffer abuse is higher still. Only in rare cases is violence against women punished. And it was only a few years ago that houses came into being where these women can find refuge.

• 10/18/09
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Whether it’s in India or Sudan, Haiti, the Middle East or even Europe – slavery is a current global phenomenon. The US journalist Benjamin Skinner spent five years travelling the world researching his book on human trafficking in the 21st century, and interviewed hundreds of people.He came to a nightmarish conclusion: there have never been as many people living in slavery as there are today, exploited and unpaid. An estimated 27 million of them.

• 10/18/09
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