ZAMBIA: School Policy for Teen Mothers a Partial Success

Naomi Mulenga is determined to beat the odds by finishing her school education and becoming a nurse – despite being a teenage mother.

KENYA: Trying to Rebuild Communities After Floods

After torrential rains and floods claimed lives in Kenya’s North Rift region, hundreds of displaced people are now in dire need of relief aid.

POLITICS-BURMA: A Poll, Yes, But Not Political Change

In teashops and markets, the national election due this year in Burma is the talk of the town, so much so that Thuzar, who did not take part in the 1990 poll, is quite eager to cast her vote this time.

IRAQ: Seculars Gain as Religious Parties Lose Ground

Iraq's largest secular bloc appears to be the biggest surprise of the parliamentary elections at a time when some of the most well-known religious groups and figures have sustained great losses, preliminary election results so far indicate.

NEPAL: Crippling Power Outages Throw Life Out of Gear

When it gets cold during Nepal’s winter nights, Yem Prasad Gurung turns on his heater run by liquefied petroleum gas. When it gets dark, he switches on the lights that rely on a solar inverter – and to make sure he gets water, he turns on a generator-powered water pump.

MEDIA-ASIA: Exiled Radio Plays A Cat-and Mouse Game

For exiled journalists working on shortwave radio programming aimed at Burmese and Tibetan listeners, dodging the ‘enemy’ in the name of freer speech is often a cat-and-mouse game.

WEST AFRICA: Stopping the Polio Virus

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners hope to eliminate the circulation of the polio virus in West Africa as soon as June by launching the first round of national synchronised immunisation days against the debilitating disease.

HEALTH-US: Maternal Deaths on the Rise

Despite the fact that the United States spends more on maternal health than any other country in the world, deaths in childbirth among U.S. women are on the rise and already surpass the morbidity rates in most developed countries.

CLIMATE CHANGE: The U.N.’s Boys’ Club

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's decision to appoint a 19-member, all-male high-level advisory group on Climate Change Financing (CCF) has triggered strong protests from women's groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) outraged by the composition of the panel.

DEVELOPMENT: ‘Aid Industry is Part of the Problem’

Aid organisations perpetuate humanitarian disasters. That is one of the conclusions made by war correspondent Linda Polman in her latest book as she describes the world of humanitarian aid.

VIETNAM: Salinisation, Drought Bring Worries to Mekong Delta

He has worked this land for half of 64 years and is known among his fellow farmers in Kien Giang province here in the Mekong Delta as ‘lao nong’, or the old master of rice.

PAKISTAN: Attacks Bring Humanitarian Work to Virtual Halt

Bomb attacks and threats to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have brought development work to a virtual halt in the lawless, volatile environment that is the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), located near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

RIGHTS: EU Selling Torture Equipment

Equipment designed for torturing prisoners is still being exported from European Union (EU) countries despite a four-year-old ban on such trade, according to a new report by Amnesty International.

WORLD CUP: But South Africa Will Win

Less than a hundred days to go, and the world looks on, often more with scepticism than anticipation.

ENVIRONMENT: So That Vans May Pollute More

Three years after vehicle-makers succeeded in weakening new European Union (EU) pollution standards for cars, many of the same firms are hoping to frustrate efforts to make vans more fuel-efficient.

POLITICS: Sahel Leaders Meet on al Qaeda Threat

Representatives from seven North African and Sahelian states convened in Algiers on Tuesday to discuss the growing threat of al Qaeda's North African affiliate in the region.

MIDEAST: Israeli Raids Target Children

Three thousand heavily armed Israeli security service forces locked down large parts of the Old City of Jerusalem on Tuesday, as battalions of police fired rounds of tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian protesters in the occupied eastern part of the city. Nearly 40 Palestinians were wounded and treated at nearby hospitals, as 25 were arrested during intense clashes.

AFRICA: Corruption Carries High Cost, World Bank Says

Poverty is on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and various forms of corruption threaten to undermine the impact of investments made to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the continent, said the World Bank in a report released Monday on Africa's development.

MALAWI: Rural Communities Jointly Care for Orphans

At the age of 66, village headman Kamwala of Dedza district in central Malawi is starting to feel the effects of ageing. He gets tired easily and needs frequent naps but says he cannot afford this luxury. He and his wife are caregivers to a one-year-old orphan.

MIDEAST: An Unlikely Collision Takes Place

In the middle of last week, it seemed that the old cliché about the light at the end of the dark Middle East tunnel was being confirmed: the U.S. had successfully cajoled both Israel and the Palestinian Authority into beginning to talk again.

Ecobreves – CHILE: New Clean Air Standards

Chile's National Environmental Commission approved on Mar. 9 a new standard for environmental quality for particulate matter of less than 2.5 microns, the size that is most harmful to human health when inhaled.