Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: The Iguana Gets a Book

Biologists and teachers in Venezuela produced a school text about the iguana, a type of lizard found in warm and arid zones, extending from Mexico to northern Argentina - and victim of uncontrolled hunting.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Film Protesting Aysén Dams Premiers

The Patagonia Defense Council, an umbrella for more than 50 Chilean and foreign organizations, last week presented a documentary film on the potential threats of the five hydroelectric dams planned for the southern region of Aysén.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Million-Dollar Garbage

Brazil loses more than 10 billion dollars yearly in disposing of solid waste in dumps and landfills that contaminate water sources and soils.

CULTURE-TAIWAN: Film Lets Audiences Revisit Overlooked Past

An overlooked piece of Taiwan’s cultural history is slowly making its way back into people’s hearts and minds with the documentary ‘E Sha Age’, due to be shown this week.

DEVELOPMENT: Anti-Poverty Fight Needs More Than Money

"Investing in children and securing their rights is one of the surest ways to ending poverty," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told 1,500 students at the United Nations International School in New York City Friday as part of the Stand Up Take Action Campaign organised by the U.N. Millennium Campaign.

MIGRATION-EL SALVADOR: Broken Homes, Broken Families

Zoila, 54, is raising her two grandchildren, who were left behind when her daughter headed to the United States in search of a better income. There are many women like her acting as surrogate mothers to their grandchildren in El Salvador, one of the Latin American countries with the largest proportion of its population living and working abroad.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Tech Sector Urged to Lead Green Economy

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appealed to the information and communications technology (ICT) community to help seal the deal at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.

POLITICS-ZIMBABWE: Unity Govt In Chaos

Zimbabwe's eight-month-old inclusive government suffered its biggest setback to date, when Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai announced that his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) was partly disengaging from the government.

STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY

WATER-ZIMBABWE
: New Wells Protect Environment, Build Peace

Twenty years ago, Isaac Chidavaenzi would worry when his neighbours set up vegetable gardens on river banks, trying to get closer to water sources. The number of gardens on the rivers' banks has now decreased, but Chidavaenzi is even more worried.

GERMANY: East Is East

Twenty years after the Berlin Wall came down, rifts between east and west Germany remain: east Germans vote differently, are earning less money, and are more pessimistic than west Germans.

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: There Is Life after the Taliban, But Fears Linger

"Life under the Taliban was like hell. They destroyed our school and the video shop of my father. Now we are again marching towards peace, but fears of the Taliban persist," said 11-year-old Ayesha.

EL SALVADOR: An Indigenous Language That Refuses to Die

"Yek shiajfikan" reads a sign hanging above the gate of the "Dr. Mario Calvo Marroquín" elementary school in the Salvadoran town of Izalco, welcoming pupils in Nawat, the language that was spoken by the area’s native communities.

UGANDA: The Media is Not Free

Every Saturday afternoon at a public house in the capital city, Lynne Anite, a journalism student at Makerere University, would join senior government officials, academics, and even business people to debate about current affairs.

MIDEAST: Cold Turkey Could Change Political Balance

It's long been among the most durable, strategic relationships in the Near East - perhaps because it was the most unlikely.

TAIWAN: Low-key National Day Brings Thoughts of Near, Far Mainland

Ten days after China’s mammoth Oct 1. parades celebrating its 60th anniversary as a communist nation, Taiwanese celebrated their own National Day with thoughts of brighter days despite overcast skies — and ties with the near yet far mainland.

PHILIPPINES: Women in Troubled South Bear Heavy Burden of Conflict

For Father Eduardo Vasquez, setting up 'Bahay Kalinga’ (House of Care) in the province of Maguindanao is one way of deepening his mission.

GERMANY: The Berlin Wall Came Down, Others Went Up

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, circumstances leading to that landmark event and what really happened behind the scenes remain a subject of debate. Equally controversial is what the fall of the wall brought in its wake.

CAMBODIA: Alarming Maternal Deaths Require a Mix of Solutions

Early this year, heavily pregnant Vorn Yoeub, 37, arrived at a hospital in the western Cambodian border town of Pailin. The mother of seven other children died later that evening along with her unborn child after suffering complications from bleeding.

DEVELOPMENT: Hunger Hurts Also the Well-Fed

Ask food experts whether it is in the interest of well-fed people in wealthy countries to fight hunger, and most will say: Yes. But ask whether we should tell them, and the answer you are likely to get is: maybe not.

POLITICS: Defiant China Asserts Role in Global Affairs

The symbolism of Beijing dispatching its second top leader for celebrations with the reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il almost at the same time as Washington was deciding to break a tradition by refusing the Dalai Lama a meeting with the U.S. President last week has not been lost on observers here — keen to glimpse ever more signs of China's rise.