HAITI: The Year of Living Dangerously – Part 2

When diplomat Ricardo Seitenfus spoke out in interviews last month condemning the international community, he was dismissed from his post within days by the Organisation of American States.

OP-ED/HAITI: Give Us Just a Day to Grieve

The anniversary of the earthquake is in less than a week, on Jan. 12. Never before had Haiti seen so many victims from a single catastrophe in so short a time. Never had Haitians experienced such solidarity, nor received so much attention from abroad and from the international community.

Suicides Rise Across India

"India has become the suicide capital of the world," says Daya Sandhu, a counselling psychology professor at the University of Louisville in the U.S.

HAITI: Women Wonder if They’ll Ever Feel Safe Again

Up a rubble-strewn street, turn right past a crumbled house, and 60 men and women are in the yard and parlor of the offices of the Commission of Women Victim-to-Victim (Komisyon Fanm Viktim pou Viktim, KOFAVIV) association.

HAITI: The Year of Living Dangerously – Part 1

Dieula Rosemond is tired. A lone swaying palm tree yields a little shade over her plastic chair. Her hands are folded in the lap of her white dress. Little girls play with a ragged, pale-faced doll behind her.

PHILIPPINES: Catholics Risk Excommunication Over Reproductive Rights

Support for reproductive health legislation, popularly known as the RH Bill here, has snowballed on social websites and among peer networks, yet passage and funding of the bill remain uncertain. Catholic bishops have long used the threat of excommunication in the raging debates over use of modern contraceptive methods - such as pills, IUDs and condoms - in the Southeast-Asian nation of over 92 million, 85 percent of whom are Catholic.

The Peace Dividend in South Sudan

This is the story of Francis Odong, a southern Sudanese man from Eastern Equitoria state.

RIGHTS-CHINA: Crackdowns Do Little to Address Sex Work

Authorities in China are lauding a sweeping crackdown on prostitution across the country in recent months. But the sex trade continues to thrive in this booming nation, while services and support for women working in the industry remain inadequate, experts say.

EASTERN EUROPE: Playing Dice With Migrants

Over the past years, acceptance rates for asylum-seekers in Central and Eastern Europe have been decreasing slowly but steadily. Even for those who do receive protected status, life is a gamble.

HEALTH-INDIA: Vitamin A Doses Keep Child Malnutrition Away

With three small children to raise in a dirt-poor village in eastern India’s Bihar state, farm labourer Renu Devi is an unsung rural supermom who shuttles between home and field every day.

JAPAN: Economic Woes Hover Over Yearend Revelry

Japanese employees are marking the countdown to the new year with the usual parties that they traditionally indulge in to 'forget the past and start afresh’. But how they celebrate – and how much they spend on these ‘bonen-kai’ celebrations – are a harbinger of the state of the economy.

DEVELOPMENT-INDIA:: Less Water, But More Rice

When French Jesuit priest and passionate agriculturist Henri de Laulanie developed the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method of cultivation for Madagascar’s poor farmers in the 1980s, he probably had no idea that millions of farmers elsewhere in the world would one day benefit from it as well.

GUATEMALA: Women Make Inroads in Key Positions of Power

Guatemala, it seems, is trying out a new image. As of this month, women are at the helm of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Comptroller General's Office, winning their posts on merit, in what local activists are calling an important step in women's access to political power -- though "there is a long way to go."

NEPAL: Education Shouldn’t Be A Casualty in Emergencies

Nepal may be doing well in providing complete primary education to boys and girls, but has quite a bit of catching up to do when it comes to ensuring that their schooling does not become a casualty during disasters and emergencies.

Q&A: “Transparency Helps Ensure Donors’ Promises Are Met”

This past September, world leaders meeting at the United Nations vowed to spend $40 billion over the next five years to save the lives of more than 16 million women and children dying of deadly diseases or lack of medical care, particularly during and after pregnancy.

KENYA: Mobile Phones to the Rescue for Pregnant Women

Pumwani Maternity Hospital, in the impoverished Nairobi neighbourhood of Eastlands, is the site of a trial project using mobile phones to help HIV-positive mothers avoid passing the virus on to their children.

INDIA: Wonder Irrigation Pump Goes A Long Way

Just two years ago, Ratha Majhi was at his wits’ end trying to eke out a decent living from his modest vegetable farm.

INDIA: Clashes Continue Between Elephant Vs Humans

Returning home from work recently, farmer Baidhar Singh was aghast to find his thatched hut in Balasore district, Orissa trampled to the ground. Just a few hundred metres away stood the culprits, huge and grey against the darkening sky: a herd of 65 wild elephants.

LATIN AMERICA: Quality Jobs Urgently Needed for Rising Generation

Programmes to reduce the unemployment rate among young people in Latin America and the Caribbean should be a priority for countries in the region, said experts, trade unionists and government representatives meeting in the Chilean capital.

PAKISTAN: Locals Rue Price to Pay for Role in U.S. Intervention

Kareem Khan probably expected his wife to break down once he brought their 18-year-old son’s body to the women’s section. But when she saw their dead boy, she just smiled and wished him farewell.

MIDEAST: Israel Now Builds Separation Wall With Africa

After the separation barrier against Palestinian territories, Israel has begun to build a new wall, this one to keep migrants from Africa out. The new wall is coming up on the Egyptian border, and with Egyptian support.