Mexico’s latest way to beat the obesity epidemic: make commuters do squats for free subway tickets

Kate Carter: The country is one of the world’s fattest nations, but can making people do 10 squats in exchange for a metro ride be anything more than a gimmick?

Crisis pregnancy centres, Brian Souter, and the anti-abortion pound

Jo Tacon: The Stagecoach boss’s donation raises more questions about anti-abortion propaganda in centres designed to offer impartial advice

Spain asks parents to sign declaration to protect daughters from FGM

Protocol says girls from countries where female genital mutilation is practised should meet doctors before and after visits

Friends united: pair who struck up an unlikely friendship in fight against FGM

British midwife and Kenyan teacher have 40 years between them but have formed a strong bond out of shared passion

North Korea claims ‘new liver medicine made at national zoo’

State media says researchers have developed a remedy to combat hepatitis made from a ‘bear’s gall’ and a ‘common shrub’

I don’t like being the face of FGM, says Australian survivor, but I must break the silence

Khadija Gbla is trying not to think about the fact she and her son, due in February, could die during labour due to medical ignorance about complications from female genital mutilation

2014: not such a bad year after all

The international news agenda tends to focus on things that go wrong. Here we present a selection of the year’s good news stories, as a counterbalance to the ravages of war, violence, disease, natural disasters, corruption et al

Symphysiotomy – Ireland’s brutal alternative to caesareans

Homa Khaleeli: Symphysiotomy has left many Irish mothers with serious long-term health problems. So did religious dogma trump the women’s best interests?

Debt collectors pursue 43m Americans over unpaid medical bills

One in five Americans have unpaid medical debts, according to a a new government report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Mothers breastfeed outside Claridge’s in support of woman told to cover up

Mass ‘nurse-in’ protest targets five-star London hotel after staff ask Louise Burns to hide her baby under a napkin