PAKISTAN: School Bombings Force Girls to Drop Out

"I am disappointed about quitting school, but my parents want me to stay at home," says Sumaira Begum, a student of class 8 at the Government High School Mardan in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP). "On Mar. 20, my school was bombed after which nearly 100 girls including I stopped attending."

RUSSIA: The Siberian Giant Is Waking Up

Ludmila Nikolovna, an ethnic Russian from Moldova, has no misgivings about her decision to come and study economics at Tomsk State University, even though she had to leave her two-month old daughter with her grandparents in Moscow.

POLITICS: U.S. Urged to Push Israel Harder on Gaza Students

While seven Palestinian Fulbright scholars now appear more likely to get their chance to study in the United States, hundreds of other university students who have received invitations to study abroad remain trapped at home by Israeli security restrictions, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW) and two national academic associations.

EDUCATION-KENYA: Students Pour In, Teachers Drain Away

Six hundred teachers have left classrooms in Kenyan schools for better paying jobs elsewhere in just the past six months, according to the Head Teachers Association and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT). That is about three teachers leaving the service every day.

FRANCE: Noble Ignorance Fails the Minorities

According to the French constitution, France has no minorities. French law makes it illegal to record citizens' ethnic origin or religion. But in the face of mounting discrimination, France recently introduced corrective institutions. However, the system is still in its infancy.

BRAZIL: Climate Change Will Weaken Renewable Energy Sources

To Brazil's credit, 45 percent of its energy comes from renewable sources, three times as much as in industrialised countries, but for that very reason it will be more vulnerable to climate change, according to a new study.

POLITICS-MIDEAST: Gaza Fulbrights, Small Yet Symbolic

Israel and the U.S. said Friday they would "revisit" a policy that prevents Palestinians from leaving the Gaza Strip to pursue their educational goals one day after a controversial State Department decision to withdraw all Fulbright Scholarships from students living in the territory.

POPULATION-CHINA: Quake Shakes One-Child Policy

Almond-shaped eyes; a young face of poignant beauty reminiscent of Hu Die - the Shanghai film star of yesteryears. The impression is helped by the stark, retro-like monochrome photo. But the leap of imagination is clipped almost immediately by the black ribbon draped around the photo and the grieving man clutching it.

LATIN AMERICA: The Legacy of May ’68

Nearly 190 years after the storming of the Bastille, Zhou En-lai, premier of China from 1949 to his death in 1976, said it was "too soon to tell," when asked about the significance of the French Revolution. Perhaps the same can be said of May 1968.

KENYA: Teenage Mothers Denied Education

At 17, Julia Metito* (*not her real name) should be in her final year in secondary school in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, but three years ago she had to leave school to give birth and then nurse a child. Today, she finds herself in Class Seven with 13-year-olds. 13,000 girls leave school every year in Kenya due to pregnancy, according to research released at the beginning of May by the Centre for the Study of Adolescence, a non-governmental organisation that works on reproductive health, gender and social policy for teenagers.

DEVELOPMENT: UN Sees Major Successes in Child Survival

The developing world is making significant progress in child survival despite the fact that nearly 2.2 billion children worldwide continue to battle poverty, sexual abuse, forced military conscription, labour exploitation and HIV/AIDS.

TECHNOLOGY-CUBA: University Opens Doors to Free Software

After years of deliberation, the University of Havana has finally decided to switch over to free software on its network of computers, virtually all of which are running the Windows operating system, produced by United States software giant Microsoft.

CULTURE-CHILE: Free Book Selections for 400,000 Families

The Chilean government has begun distributing carefully selected packages of books to thousands of low-income families. But the programme aimed at promoting reading is not without its detractors, who question the extent of its real impact.

Q&A: Russian Children Learn Market Ways

After the political changes that brought in capitalism, education in Russia emerged from its old centralised style. The changes in education now have been no less radical than the political changes.

SCIENCE-US: Evolution Under Siege in Classrooms

Darwinian evolution - the 19th century geologist and naturalist Charles Darwin's acclaimed theory of natural selection of species and the origins of humanity - is apparently still a source of controversy, most recently here in the state of Florida.

ARGENTINA: Training Health Agents to Reduce Child Mortality

An ambitious new programme for training health agents to help reduce infant mortality in small rural communities and indigenous villages, launched by one of Argentina’s best-known human rights groups, drew many more applicants than the organisers had hoped for.

BALKANS: Religious Differences Go To School

When parents of today's school children went to school, religion was a private matter, something talked about at home or among friends and relatives in communist former Yugoslavia.

POLITICS-US: Vets Press McCain to Back Greater Benefits

A leading political action committee founded by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has launched a new internet video and petition demanding Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain throw his support behind a new G.I. Bill to provide improved education benefits for soldiers returning home from the two wars.

COLOMBIA: Violent Society, Violent Schools

In a survey carried out in 807 public and private primary and secondary schools across the social spectrum in the Colombian capital, 56 percent of students said they had been robbed within the school premises.

EDUCATION-SOUTH AFRICA: Making the Blackboard Jungle Less So

Violence in South African schools has claimed the lives of a number of children in recent years, while many more have been hospitalised with injuries.

Q&A: "A World &#39Unfit&#39 for 2.2 Billion Children"

As the United Nations plans to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its landmark Convention on the Rights of the Child next year, the world's 2.2 billion children continue to suffer the consequences of growing poverty, rising illiteracy, increasing sexual abuse and widespread military conscription in conflicts worldwide.