BURMA: Amid Threats, Women Dissidents Stick to Political Beliefs

While Aung San Suu Kyi remains the most widely-known woman suppressed for her political views in Burma, the jails in that military-ruled country continue to be filled by lesser-known women dissidents being held on a range of questionable charges.

Q&A: More Women Journalists Doesn’t Mean More Gender Awareness

Young Indian women are taking to journalism in droves, but Ammu Joseph, author of several authoritative books on women in media, believes that these numbers do not necessarily translate into gender awareness.

GUATEMALA: Off Track for Millennium Development Goals

Guatemala knows that when it comes time to demonstrate compliance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of global anti-poverty and development target to be met by 2015, it will make a poor showing.

PHILIPPINES: Children’s Charities Feel Economic Crunch

Children's charities and non-government organisations (NGOs) in the Philippines face tough times ahead as major overseas funders cut back on financial support due to the global financial crisis, against a backdrop of donor fatigue.

CHILE: A Tidal Wave of Solidarity

Chile has been wrapped in a blanket of international solidarity, while offers of cooperation for the relief of victims and the reconstruction of the country shower down upon it, after the devastating Feb. 27 earthquake and tsunami.

PAKISTAN: Emergency Contraception More Popular, But Myths Abound

The first time he and his wife had an ‘accident’, 40-year-old Kamran Rehman worried that they may have inadvertently paved the way for child number three. A chemist he consulted, however, recommended that his wife try the emergency contraceptive pill (ECP).

RIGHTS-AUSTRIA: Migrants Issue Stokes Political Passions

Support for the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) in Austria has soared amid debate over controversial plans for the construction of a new centre to house asylum seekers.

CHILE: Assessing Quake Damages, Acknowledging Mistakes

While the number of victims of the severe earthquake and tsunami that hit Chile early Saturday has climbed to 723, government officials and experts admit that the catastrophe has highlighted institutional shortcomings and blunders.

U.S.: Healthcare Should Include Abortion Access, Women Say

Last fall, the push to reform healthcare in the United States was all but hijacked by one of the country's most passionate recurring cultural debates.

HAITI: Earthquake Epicentre Copes with Aftermath

Marie Saintus sat regally on a wicker chair in the narrow alley by her makeshift home at the Anacaona Stadium, in the middle of this once bucolic city, as she teased her neighbours.

RIGHTS: Women More Educated, Not More Equal

When it comes to female education rates, progress has been made around the world, and in many countries girls and young women have outnumbered and outperformed boys and men at all levels of schooling for decades. Nevertheless, these advances have yet to translate into greater equity in employment, politics and social relations.

PHILIPPINES: Green Measures Expose Bias Against Urban Poor

Edgar Borras sifts through his remaining possessions in a demolished shanty beside a Manila waterway, preparing to bring them to his wife and 12-year-old son who now live in a remote relocation site in a province outside the Philippine capital.

MIGRATION: France Urges EU to Tighten Mediterranean Borders

The European Union is studying a range of measures aimed at strengthening its external borders to deter undocumented migrants from entering via Mediterranean member states such as Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Spain.

POLITICS-BURMA: Conflict Pushes Karen Women to be Village Chiefs

In military-ruled Burma’s Karen state, tradition and a male-dominated social order have long guaranteed men the role of village chiefs. But this order is crumbling in the country’s eastern region, giving rise to the new phenomenon of women village chiefs.

US-HAITI: Katrina Victims Feel Kinship, Offer Help

Many survivors of Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans and the U.S. Gulf Coast in August 2005, have been seeing their own reflection in media images of Haiti earthquake victims. And despite - or even because of - their own struggle, many feel personally driven to help organise assistance for the people of Haiti.

JORDAN: Where Iraqi Women Are Also Fathers

Back in Najaf, Iraq, Khayzaran and her family lived in a well-kept house. They had two cars and a small orchard. Her children, two girls and three boys, attended school and came home to modest feasts.

RIGHTS-GERMANY: ‘Catholic Church Protects Paedophile Priests’

The Catholic Church has for decades protected paedophile priests and clerics who sexually abused children from judiciary prosecution, according to German theologians, law experts, and internal church documents.

POLITICS-NIGER: First Steps Towards the Restoration of Democracy?

As its promised transition to democratic rule begins, the military junta that overthrew Nigerien president Mamadou Tandja on February 18 has named a former information minister, Mahamadou Danda, as the new prime minister while retaining legislative and executive powers for itself.

MEDIA-INDIA: More Women Now, But Few in Top Posts

Young Indian women are increasingly taking to careers in journalism, but this trend is restricted to the metropolises and to non-decision making positions in media organisations, leading women journalists say.

RIGHTS-EUROPE: Military Technology to Track Down Migrants?

Arms manufacturers have been asked to advise an official European Union (EU) body on how their products can be used to stop asylum seekers entering the bloc’s territory.

PAKISTAN: Smoke-free Stoves A Godsend for Village Women

Forty-something and unlettered, Sona Siddiqi never imagined she would become the most sought-after woman in her village of Ramzan Katiar.