PARAGUAY: Hunger Follows Worst Fires in History

Food shortages and hunger in the northern Paraguayan provinces of Concepción and San Pedro have followed the worst fires in this country’s history, which destroyed over one million hectares of crops and forestland and left nearly 50,000 people homeless and eight dead.

LATIN AMERICA: Nine Roads Through the Virgin Wilderness

In the name of development and integration, roads, bridges, dams, gas pipelines, ports and other infrastructure works are expanding in South America. But many of the projects are trampling roughshod over protected areas that preserve unique ecosystems and vulnerable native cultures.

HEALTH: The Quiet Scandal of 10 Million Deaths

A global coalition of governments and organisations has launched a new campaign to drastically improve pre- and post-natal healthcare in places like India, which alone accounts for a staggering 25 percent of the world's child deaths and 20 percent of maternal deaths.

ENVIRONMENT-PAKISTAN: Residents Solve Own Sanitation Woes

Unlike his neighbours in the opposite lane, Muhammad Salam lets his children play out in the street without the slightest worry.

POPULATION-PHILIPPINES: Manila Women to Fight Ban on Contraceptives

Lourdes Esplana-Osil has seven children, all born within a space of 12 years. Warned by her doctor of complications from repeated pregnancies, she started using injectable contraceptives provided free at a local government health centre.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Citizenship Test Slammed as Stupid, Racist

Prospective Australian citizens will now be required to pass a citizenship test which will, according to the federal Government, assist in providing aspiring Australians with an understanding of "Australia’s values, traditions, history and national symbols".

PORTUGAL: Brain Drain Still Bleeding Ex-Colonies Dry

The violence, corruption and generalised poverty marring more than three decades of independence in Portugal’s five former colonies in Africa, and five years of independence in East Timor, have been the main obstacles for development in these countries, but not the only ones.

VENEZUELA: Anti-Domestic Violence Campaign Targets Men

If the coffee is cold, he goes ballistic, smashes the cup on the floor and lashes out at his partner. If she doesn’t come running when he calls, or their daughter cries, he shouts impatiently and hits her. These are some of the scenes in unprecedented TV spots now appearing in Venezuela.

LABOUR-MALAYSIA: Flawed Policy Results in Flood of Migrant Workers

As thousands of migrant workers from Bangladesh stranded at the international airport here await deportation questions are being asked about Malaysia’s migrant worker policies and the dubious role of employment agencies.

DEVELOPMENT-GHANA: Picking Up the Pieces After the Floods

"We prayed to God to open the heavens, but this is not what we expected," says Peter Nayoon, a farmer from Gushiegu in the north of Ghana, one of several African countries blighted by floods over recent weeks. "I am finished," he adds, pointing dejectedly towards the area that used to be his yam farm. "Who would give me money to start a new life?"

CARIBBEAN: Chips, Booze and Cigarettes Cost Region Millions

Every weekday, Darrian Marcel speaks to thousands of people as co-host of the highest-rated morning radio show in Trinidad and Tobago.

TRADE: Only a Handful Are Lords of the Food Harvest

The food and beverage industry is experiencing a high degree of concentration, with 10 distributing companies controlling 24 percent of the world market, according to a report being studied this week by workers’, employers’ and government representatives gathered by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

CHILE: Mega Dams, Mega Impacts, Mega Half-Truths

An organisation in the Aysén region in the south of Chile which opposes the building of five hydroelectric stations on two large rivers has made a documentary film about the reactions of communities affected by dams and power lines in Chile and Argentina.

GREECE: Nigerian Women Make a Living on the Street

Every night besides the town hall of Athens, next to Omonia square, where the narrow streets of the popular entertainment hub district Psirris begin, black girls from Nigeria gather to work.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Publics in North and South Want Action

Amid a series of international conferences on climate change this week, the BBC has released a 21-nation survey in which two out of three respondents said they believed "major steps starting very soon" need to be taken to combat global warming.

MIGRATION-SPAIN: Picking and Choosing the Favoured Few

In Spain, measures to both attract and deter immigrants are being stepped up, depending on their country of origin, and especially on their work experience and professional qualifications.

MIGRATION: U.S. Doors Cracked to Iraqi Refugees

A full-blown humanitarian disaster looms in Iraq, warns a new report on the refugee crisis there by Amnesty International, and the international community is responding with little more than "global apathy".

MIDEAST: Border Impasse Arises Again

The border crisis that had appeared to subside last month is back, with an estimated 2,000 Palestinians marooned on Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip.

RIGHTS-MEXICO: Soldiers Involved in Policing Accused of Abuses

Using the army for police work has left a trail of human rights violations in Mexico, including unwarranted house searches, illegal arrests, thefts, torture, rapes and murders committed by soldiers sometimes under the influence of drugs.

RIGHTS: Disability Treaty Waits for Legal Teeth

Disabled rights groups and U.N. officials hope that the first core human rights treaty of the 21st century, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, could finally assume legal force when world leaders gather here for the 62nd session of the General Assembly next week.

EUROPE: U.S. Visa Puts Allies at Odds

Negotiations for a new visa regime between the United States and the European Union (EU) have driven another wedge between the EU's older, Western members and the Eastern European countries that recently joined.