ENVIRONMENT-AFRICA: Game Parks Offering Protection in Name Only?

The sharp decline of Africa's abundant wildlife is now happening inside the continent's protected areas, a new analysis indicates. Africa's world renowned parks are destined to become isolated pockets of wilderness with few large animals left, as is the case in Europe, conclude the authors of an article in the current edition of the 'African Journal of Ecology'.

PAKISTAN: Afghan Refugee Camp Spared Closure Till Spring

Afghan refugee leaders heaved a sigh of relief Friday after the Pakistan government agreed to postpone the closure of the Jalozai refugee camp, 35 km east of this border city, to April next year.

GUATEMALA: Elections Hold Out Little Hope for Women Victims of Violence

Although they have taken a tough stance on crime, the leading candidates for Sunday’s presidential elections in Guatemala have not specifically addressed the serious problem of violence against women, which has cost at least 322 lives so far this year, nor have they proposed concrete measures to combat it.

LATIN AMERICA: Scientists Second-Guessing the Path of the Whirlwind

Hurricanes Dean, Felix and Henriette caused dozens of deaths and millions of dollars worth of damage in the tropical zone of the Americas in just over two weeks. But worse may lie ahead, as five large cyclones are expected to materialise before the storm season is over.

VENEZUELA: Not Even Funerals Safe from Flying Bullets

At the wake of Yeison Mendoza, a 25-year-old construction worker shot dead in Petare, a poor neighbourhood on the eastside of the Venezuelan capital, prayers, tears and flowers set the atmosphere until hooded gunmen on motorcycles fired a hail of bullets into the Zambrano funeral parlour, killing three people and wounding another five.

IRAQ: Samarra Under U.S. Attack

Residents are fleeing Samarra city in the face of fierce fighting between U.S. forces and resistance groups.

RIGHTS-CHILE: Baby Steps, But Progress Nonetheless

Human rights groups in Chile are celebrating legal rulings in favour of victims of the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, and announcements by President Michelle Bachelet in the same vein. But they are critical of the slow pace of justice and the amount that still needs to be done.

RIGHTS-ASIA: MTV Turns Spotlight on Human Trafficking

MTV, the most popular music channel in the Asia-Pacific region, will soon be playing a different tune. Half-hour shows, beginning Sep.18 for MTV Thailand, will have live and hip music giving way to the harrowing accounts of human trafficking victims.

EL SALVADOR: Two Cheers for Democracy (None for Politicians)

Rafael Nieto, a barman in the Salvadoran capital, says that the institutions in his country do not work, lawyer Nelson Recinos maintains that "the normal thing here is to break the law," and shopkeeper Ana Menjívar says the political parties "don’t represent the wishes of the people."

ITALY: Windscreen Wipers Face Clearance

In several towns across Italy, forced windscreen wiping is becoming a criminal offence.

SPAIN: Self-Immolation Highlights Plight of Trafficking Victims

A Romanian immigrant set himself alight in Spain Tuesday, in a state of despair over his inability to take his family back to their home country. The man, who said he had been the victim of a false job offer, is in a serious condition in hospital.

BRAZIL: Sports, Not Overprotection, for the Disabled

Sports competitions for the disabled help parents and educators overcome the pitfalls of overprotection. Ten-year-old Andrea began swimming as a toddler, and trains twice a month in the ocean. Her mother says she has never been given special treatment, even though she has been blind from birth.

PERU: Distribution of Earthquake Aid Under Scrutiny

Mayor Juan Mendoza seems perfectly at home. "Juanito, I need a coffin," "Juanito, we need tents in my barrio," "Juanito, the food’s run out in my neighbourhood," local residents clamour as they cluster around him.

BRAZIL: Bittersweet Sugarcane

The sugarcane workers in this small Brazilian town ate at least 200 of the little roasted wild birds. But they had not hunted them. They merely collected the roasted bodies of the birds that died in the controlled fire set in the cane field.

RIGHTS-BRAZIL: ‘Quilombos’ Fight Exclusion

More than a century after the abolition of slavery, Brazil still has small remnant "quilombos", free settlements created by fugitive African slaves in the 17th and 18th centuries.

PERU: Little Help for Slum-Dwellers Left Homeless by Quake

"We have come here because God sent us," says pastor Pedro Leyva Díaz. He looks tired after distributing food, clothes and sweets in dozens of poor communities devastated by the earthquake in southern Peru.

ENVIRONMENT: 21st Century May Belong to the Shrub

As atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to climb shrubs and other woody plants will likely dominate grasslands, altering pastoral lifestyles around the world, a U.S. study has found.

BOLIVIA: Unequal Battle Against Hunger

In the crowded Bolivian barrio of Achachicala, Salvation Army pastors and volunteers are fighting malnutrition by feeding 500 children on less than 50 cents of a dollar per meal.

BRAZIL: City Residents Want to Know ‘How Are We Doing?’

A civil society movement in Bogotá, Colombia has become a model for Brazilians who want to restore quality of life in the country’s two largest cities, by changing the political practices of city governments through mechanisms for communication and citizen oversight.

ARGENTINA: Expansion of Agricultural Frontier Endangers Native Communities

Encroached upon by the expanding agricultural frontier and facing the indifference of the state, indigenous communities in the northeastern Argentine province of Chaco have problems of access to water, food and their natural medicines, and are heading towards extinction.

HEALTH: Guyana Catches Herbal Fever

A quiet but perhaps long overdue debate is taking place in this small English-speaking South American republic over the growing power and influence alternative medical practitioners, some of whom have recently been forced to officially back away from claims about special powers to heal everything from HIV/AIDS to various forms of cancer.