SAUDI ARABIA: Foreign Workers Trapped in a Gilded Cage

When Egyptian mechanical engineer Farid Hassanein received a phone call two years ago notifying him that his application for work in neighbouring oil-rich Saudi Arabia was approved, he thought his long-time dream of owning a car would be close at hand.

POLITICS-UGANDA: Peace Talks With Rebels Stall Over Sudan’s Neutrality

At the age of 63, Mama Dorothea Aduk should have been enjoying retirement, and a comfortable life in her village in northern Uganda.

AUSTRALIA: Mothers Assertive in Child Custody Battles

It could have been the script for a Hollywood thriller. After a Lebanese-Australian spirits away his two daughters to Beirut, his estranged Canadian wife gives chase and retrieves them - with the help of mercenaries.

GUATEMALA: The High Price of Violence

Civilian violence is already costing Guatemala half its national budget, as well as countless human lives and social breakdown, while corruption and impunity walk hand in hand.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Pulling Together for a New Brazil

A different approach to politics, with mechanisms for society to define the kind of country it wants to build through the exercise of direct democracy, is the common purpose driving the social movements participating in the "Mutirao for a New Brazil."

EUROPE: World Bank Promotes ‘Circular Migration’

Most migrants from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union would prefer to spend shorter periods abroad and then return home, says a new World Bank report.

IRAQ: U.S. Offers Scant Help to Fleeing Refugees

With some two million of its citizens having fled to other countries and another 1.7 million internally displaced, Iraq has become one of the world's biggest and fastest growing humanitarian crises for which the United States should take far more responsibility, according to human rights groups and other experts.

HEALTH-PAKISTAN: Obstetric Fistula – Grim Reminder of Unmet MDGs

''I wouldn't have thrown her out but would certainly have remarried,'' says Mohammad Qasim easily, sitting in a verandah at the Koohi Goth Maternity Centre in the suburbs of this southern port city.

POLITICS: Local U.N. Staff Face Highest Risks

2006 was a deadly year for United Nations civilian staff and peacekeepers.

ECUADOR: Correa, Another Bolivarian Socialist

At his swearing-in ceremony on Monday, Ecuador's new president, Rafael Correa, defined his government as Bolivarian, called for "21st century socialism", emphasised the need for South American integration and urged the region's governments to join forces in order to restructure public debt.

SOUTH-EAST ASIA: The Maid Will Check the New ASEAN Charter

It is in the kitchens and sculleries of South-east Asia's affluent homes that the new constitution of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional bloc will be tested.

RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Constitutional Court Holds Out Hope for Displaced

"You can't imagine what it is like to lose everything in a split second, to flee as fast as you can with your terrified, hungry family, with no friends and without a single peso in your pockets, full of sadness because you're leaving behind everything - however much or little - that you have gained after years of work."

EUROPE: A Statue Speaks Another Language

Of more than 30,000 African refugees who landed on the Spanish Canary Islands last year, few had time to see the statue towering above the small port Garachico. And if they did, few could have understood what it meant.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: From the Burkinabe Countryside to Italian Tomato Fields

For Mady Daboné, Europe beckons. "Staying here...is misery," the 30-year-old from the village of Begdo in eastern Burkina Faso told IPS, adding that several of his friends were already abroad. "I have about twenty of them in Italy and Spain. They have all done well, even though they suffered at the beginning."

RIGHTS-CUBA: Fewer Political Prisoners, But Little Progress

The number of people in prison for political reasons in Cuba fell last year, but only by an insignificant margin, and there is no sign of a change in official policy since the "temporary" withdrawal from public life of President Fidel Castro due to illness last July, dissident sources said.

ENVIRONMENT-CHILE: UV Radiation, the Dark Side of the Sun

The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, where the ozone thins out every southern hemisphere springtime, is recovering for the time being, but all regions in Chile will receive extremely high levels of ultraviolet radiation this month.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Argentina’s (Economic) Growing Pains

Just five years ago, Argentina collapsed. But it was able to curb the slide into the abyss and soon became one of the leaders of economic growth in Latin America, with major improvements in employment and income distribution and a decline in poverty levels.

BRAZIL: Cell Phones – Democratising Communications

Rapid expansion in the poorer sectors of society, especially among the large number of informal workers, has taken the number of mobile phones in Brazil to over 100 million, equivalent to more than 53 percent of the population.

CHILE: Mapuche Indians Want Response to Their Demands

The Mapuches, Chile's largest indigenous group, are tired of the promises of social justice and greater participation in decision-making voiced by the last three centre-left governments. Their leaders thus met with President Michelle Bachelet to propose a new working relationship.

POLITICS-SUDAN: “I Am Staying Because This Is My Home”

In recent weeks, violence has flared again in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, forcing the largest-scale evacuation of humanitarian workers since aid operations in the war-torn area began in 2004.

LATIN AMERICA: The Challenge of Gauging Progress Towards MDGs

Almost halfway to the deadline for meeting the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), some of the targets are still out of reach of many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. And there is another challenge: strengthening statistical capacity to measure progress.