Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Anti-Rabies Campaign Under Way

The Guatemalan Ministry of Health launched a campaign on Mar. 20 to vaccinate 1.6 million dogs and 30,000 cats in rural areas to prevent rabies in the wake of a prolonged drought.

Ecobreves – PERU:: New Anti-Desertification Center Announced

Peru's National Human Resources Institute (INRENA) is working with Brazil to set up a Regional Anti-Desertification Center, which will include the other countries that share the tropical forests of the Amazon.

Ecobreves – COSTA RICA: National Parks in Crisis

Costa Rica's national parks are in an distressing state of abandon due to lack of money to hire the 300 park rangers necessary to protect areas' biodiversity from hunters, charged Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, the national environment minister.

Ecobreves – NORTH AMERICA: Protection for Three Marine Species

Canada, Mexico and the United States will seek a common strategy to protect the humpbacked whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), the pink-footed shearwater (Puffinus creatopus) and the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) as part of an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of migratory species.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Latin American Environmental Observatory

Argentina's National Ecological Action Network (RENACE), an umbrella for more than 70 non-governmental organizations, in May will launch the Latin American Environmental Observatory to unite groups that are dealing with similar challenges.

Law on Assisted Reproduction Divides Italy

A new Italian law, which bans experiments involving human embryos, is a violation of the rights of infertile couples and of scientific freedom, say critics. The fate of the 24,000 frozen embryos that exist in Italy is uncertain.

Peruvian Indians Save the Once-Endangered Vicuña

In the 1960s, there were just 25,000 of these camelids left. Now the vicuña population in Peru is growing eight percent a year and the species is no longer in danger of extinction, thanks to their protection in the hands of local indigenous communities.

A Step Backwards for the Ozone Layer

Washington won an exemption allowing its farmers to use more methyl bromide, a pesticide banned by an international treaty because it depletes the atmospheric ozone layer. But the exemption lasts only one year.

MESOAMERICA: Puebla-Panama Plan Resurfaces

Impoverished Mesoamerica will be recognised as competitive, integrated and with a healthy, educated and diversity-respecting population by 2015, promise the governments behind the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP).

COLOMBIA: Indians and Blacks Displaced by War in Remote Northwest

Heavy fighting between leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups in the remote jungle region of northwestern Colombia led to the forced displacement of 1,275 Emberá indigenous people this week.

COMMUNICATIONS: Good Internet Governance Key for Development – Annan

A story making the rounds at the United Nations forum on Internet governance is about a young U.S. student of philosophy who decides to seek spiritual guidance from an ascetic monk living in the foothills of the Himalayas.

DEVELOPMENT: Polio on the Brink of Elimination

A final assault to eradicate polio, an infectious disease that paralyses children, is underway with the goal of halting transmission of the disease by the end of 2004.

BURMA: Even Basic Freedoms Still Lacking, Says UN Expert

The most disturbing indicators of the human rights situation in Myanmar (Burma) are the absence of basic freedoms and the prolonged imprisonment of political dissidents, who in some cases have been behind bars for 14 or 15 years, said United Nations expert Paulo Sergio Pinheiro.

DEVELOPMENT-NIGERIA: Cocoa Farmers Learn to Escape the Middleman

The prospects for cocoa farmers in West Africa have not appeared rosy in recent years, what with declining cocoa prices and reports of exploitive labour practices on their properties.

RIGHTS-THAILAND: New ID Card Creates Furore over Invasion of Privacy

Are Thai citizens on the verge of losing their right to privacy? That question frames a contentious debate underway here as the time approaches for the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to introduce a new national identity card.

TRADE-KENYA: Government Takes Steps to Streamline Investment Procedures

In its latest bid to make Kenya more attractive to foreign capital, government says it will introduce a law that simplifies investment procedures for entrepreneurs who want to open businesses in the country.

CHINA-BURMA: Drug Trade Booms at the Border

Two young Burmese Muslims are hanging out, wearing neat, bright clothes and Ray-Ban sunglasses with golden hand chains. Around them are bustling Chinese and Burmese Muslims stealthily unwrapping pieces of cloth to reveal their wares of jade.

SAUDI ARABIA: Space for Foreign Workers Shrinks in ‘Saudisation’

With about 5 million Asian "guest workers" and an estimated unemployment rate anywhere between 20 and 30 percent, Saudi Arabia is trying to enforce the 'Saudisation' of its workforce.

SAUDI ARABIA: Space for Foreign Workers Shrinks in ‘Saudisation’

Subodh Shetty is a quiet, dignified, and reserved man. So even two weeks after an event that he calls "very, very humiliating" in which he was taken to a detention centre, his head shaved and was not able to eat or drink for 24 hours, he still tries to appear humble by chuckling when his voice starts to choke.

SUSTAINABILITY: Water Woes Cloud Philippine Campaign, Poor Bear Burden

''We won't make our life more difficult paying for something we can't even have,'' Edita Mallorca, a resident of the Tondo slums here says, referring to services for clean water that have become an election issue in the Philippines.

DEVELOPMENT-PORTUGAL: The Hungry Side of the EU

Nearly two decades as a member of the European Union "club of the rich" have translated into little or nothing for the two million Portuguese people living in poverty.