CARIBBEAN: Brain Drain – No Solution in Sight

Like other developing regions, the Caribbean is no stranger to brain drain. Besides the impact on local economies, the exodus of university graduates has profound social implications, and there is no solution in sight.

RIGHTS-MEXICO: Tlatelolco Massacre – 40 Years of Impunity

The rivers of ink that have been spilled in investigations, trials and the collection of testimony on the Oct. 2, 1968 massacre of student demonstrators in Tlatelolco square in Mexico City have made it clear that the state was responsible. But not one person has been sentenced, and no one even knows exactly how many young protesters died.

SIERRA LEONE: Ghost Schools, Phantom Progress On Education

Magnus Kamara is a school inspector with a difference. He has been hired to find schools that don't exist.

DEVELOPMENT-TANZANIA: Lighting Up Women’s Lives

Anneth Laizer shoved her kerosene lantern onto the top shelf and switched on the lights after her home in Tanzania's third-largest city, Arusha, was connected to electricity earlier this year.

EDUCATION-ZAMBIA: Food Insecurity Hits Schools

"Sometimes there is barely any food at home, so I only eat at school, at lunch," said Justin Banda, a 12 year old student, at Chikumboso school in Lusaka’s Ngombe township.

DEVELOPMENT: Poverty Hearings Show People Behind the Numbers

Benjamine Agbodjan Ablavi of Togo says she scraped together the money to pay her own school fees by selling fruit.

TRADE-AFRICA: Art Creating Hope in the Midst of Death and Disease

Zulu artists working at the Ardmore Ceramic Studio in South Africa’s coastal province of KwaZulu Natal have gone from poverty to international acclaim.

UGANDA: Women Wield Fair Trade Tools to Beat Poverty

Producing baskets and mats in central Uganda has traditionally been women’s work. Women made these items for use in homes. The National Association of Women Organisations in Uganda (NAWOU) has changed this practice into a powerful force fighting poverty.

CHILE: Salvador Allende – Greatest Chilean, by Popular Acclaim

The late socialist President Salvador Allende, who was overthrown by the armed forces on Sept. 11, 1973, was elected the "greatest Chilean in history" in a viewers' poll organised by a television programme that stirred up controversy.

AGRICULTURE-SWAZILAND: Young Farmers Improving Food Security

When her friends go out to play with skipping rope during break, 12 year old Noncedo Masina takes her watering can and goes to work on her plot at the school vegetable garden.

DEVELOPMENT: Millions More Children Attending School

Despite the world not being on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there has been real progress - even in some of the world's poorest countries.

MIDEAST: Teachers Trapped Between Fatah and Hamas

A strike call has trapped thousands of teachers between Fatah unions and a Hamas government.

Q&A: Zimbabwean Women Have Had ‘‘More Trauma'' After Independence

Zimbabwean women have experienced higher levels of trauma, including violence and lack of food, after the country's independence from Britain in 1980 than before.

DEVELOPMENT-ETHIOPIA: Understanding Poverty's Impact on Children

When the school bell rings, Alemtsehay and her three younger sisters rush home to change out of their school uniforms and into tattered clothes to go out begging around Bole Road, one of Addis Ababa's smarter areas.

RIGHTS: Fighting the ‘War on Terror’

The "war on terror" in the aftermath of the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001 has undermined human rights globally, according to activists and experts who attended a UN conference in Paris.

CHILE: Keeping Indigenous Languages Alive

"Mari, mari!" shout the excited group of 20 Chilean, Peruvian and Ecuadorean three- and four-year-olds, using the Mapuche language greeting to welcome a visitor to their intercultural day care centre in Santiago.

CUBA: Shoring Up the Educational System

In the new school year, which begins next Monday, Cuba’s educational system will be trying out several changes aimed at overcoming the decline in the quality of teaching, blamed on a shortage of teachers and other problems.

EDUCATION-MEXICO: Teachers and Students Failing Exams

Assessments of student performance at primary and secondary schools in Mexico have produced dismal results, as have evaluations of new teachers, who have to pass exams before being appointed to a teaching post.

SOUTH AFRICA: Rights Work Hampered by Closure Threat

The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) last week lifted a funding ban on its Centre for Civil Society (CCS) after national and international intellectuals protested loudly against the leftist centre’s potential closure. Yet, the uncertainty of the past few weeks has already impacted negatively on CCS’ operations.

BRAZIL: Producing Guitars and Luthiers in the Rainforest

Cuban instrument-maker or luthier Raúl Lage came for six months, but has already spent seven and a half years in Manaus, the city in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. "The project is really fantastic," he says, explaining why he plans to renew his work contract again in September.

SOUTH AMERICA: Architecture Students Visit 50 Cities in 40 Days

A group of advanced architecture students and graduates from Argentina will tour more than 50 cities in their own country, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay to discover common characteristics in the architectural heritage of the Mercosur (Southern Common Market) countries.