MEXICO: Parents’ Fight for Justice Continues a Year After Nursery Fire

From the moment he wakes up each morning, Abraham Fraijo feels the absence of his daughter Emilia, one of the 49 children who died Jun. 5, 2009, in a fire at the ABC child-care centre in the northwestern Mexican city of Hermosillo. It is the battle for justice that keeps him going.

BURMA: HIV Infection on the Rise Among Men Who Have Sex with Men

The only son in his family, Maung Maung Oo was forced to marry when he was 24 years old. By then he had been carrying on a sexual relationship with a man for four years – which he continued even after his marriage.

INDIA: Mangroves Face Severe Threat from Human Activities

When a super cyclone devastated the coastal districts of Orissa state in 1999, the government pledged to regenerate 3,000 hectares of mangrove. Or so forest official Chandra Sekhar Kar thought.

MIDEAST: Israeli Navy Storms Humanitarian Flotilla

Israeli naval commandos shot dead at least 16 people and wounded over 30 on Monday morning, as they attacked an unarmed humanitarian and civilian flotilla - in international waters - trying to bring desperately needed aid to Gaza. The death toll was expected to rise.

PAKISTAN: Lake Disaster Triggers New Displacements

Up until Saturday the Attabad Lake in northern Pakistan had been rising one metre every day and was thus on the verge of breaking its banks, observed Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmed, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Local Communities Tapped to Counter Mekong Floods

With monsoon rains beginning to sweep across mainland south-east Asia, mobile phones are being put to further use as part of a plan to protect communities living on the banks of the Mekong River from flash floods.

MEXICO: Optimism and Unease as Census Begins

The 100,000 pollsters who will begin knocking on doors throughout Mexico Sunday for the national census will likely face a population hesitant to provide personal information. They may also run into the drug violence that plagues some areas of the country.

RIGHTS: China’s Secret ‘Black Jails’ Hold Sordid Tales of Injustice

In 2003, a number of Xu Cong Yang’s possessions – including jewelry and a rare stamp collection – went missing. The culprit, he believed, was a company owned by the local government in a central Chinese city that Xu had enlisted to insure the items.

INDIA: Doubts Cloud Upcoming Amnesty Int’l Report on Kashmir

The human rights body Amnesty International (AI) has yet to release its report on the outcome of its unprecedented visit last week to the disputed Indian- administered Kashmir state, but already there are doubts over its ability to come up with fair and accurate findings.

ECUADOR: Harsh Indigenous Justice Sparks Debate

Naked and carrying a heavy bag of rocks, a young man stumbled several laps around a plaza filled by some 2,000 indigenous Ecuadoreans, who shouted insults and called him "murderer" and "traitor."

SRI LANKA: Garment Sector, Gov’t Optimistic about Trade Pact with EU

Relations between Sri Lanka and European Union (EU), which turned frosty around six months back, appear to be thawing as the government makes a last ditch stand to regain a crucial trade concession that has been suspended over human rights issues hounding the south Asian island state.

THAILAND: Red Shirt Stage Offers Platform to Marginalised Culture

She sang till the very end on a stage she could never call her own.

SRI LANKA: War-Affected Women Bewail Their Plight

Rajini Padamaraj, 32, is burdened with the responsibility of looking after the needs of her entire household, composed of her mother and two younger siblings.

MIDEAST: Hamas’ Turn to Demolish Palestinian Homes

On Sunday approximately 150 Palestinians from 20 families were driven out of their homes in Rafah, in the southern Gaza strip, by heavily armed police and soldiers who menaced them with clubs.

GULF: Search On for Green Options to Forestall Water Shortage

Realising that achieving water security in the future is not an option but a necessity, oil-rich Gulf countries are striving to find new environment-friendly and more economical ways of producing freshwater.

AUSTRALIA: Debate Heats Up on Equal Representation for Women

Australia may be the land of the ‘fair go’, yet not all seems fair where equal representation of men and women is concerned.

TRADE-NEPAL: Himalayan Nation’s Garment Industry in Tatters

These days, First Vice-President of the Garment Association (GAN) of Nepal Udaya Raj Pandey is mostly seen at the National Campus rather than the GAN office that he once frequented almost every day.

JAPAN: Women Changing the Face of Politics, Slowly but Almost Surely

Junko Hamada, 59, is now in her 12th year as an elected member of the city council of Isehara, a sprawling bed town west of Tokyo with an estimated population of 150,000.

THAILAND: Political Wounds Go Far Beyond Burnt Buildings, Deaths

The charred skeletons of buildings in central Bangkok will be rebuilt after this week's violence, but repairing the gaping fissures in Thai society - deepened further by the army crackdown on anti-government protesters - remains a far harder task.

INDIA: Rising Use of Emergency Contraceptives Raises Alarm

When Sunita Sanyal (last name changed) complained of intense headache and vomiting, her mother presumed it was just pre-examination jitters. After all, Sunita’s business management finals were just a week away.

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Green Initiative Gives Hope to the Disabled

Talib Hussain, 29, became the sole breadwinner of his family of seven after his father suffered a stroke that left him half paralysed. Hussain brings home 4,000 Pakistani rupees (about 47 U.S. dollars) monthly, which he dutifully turns over to his mother.