BRAZIL: Racism Reflected in Health System

Brazil's minister of health, Agenor Álvares, has admitted that the public health system is imbued with racism, stirring up more controversy over policies for specific treatment plans targeting Brazilians of African descent.

SRI LANKA: Tamil Moderates Charge Gov&#39t With Genocide

One of the last public acts of Tamil parliamentarian Nadaraja Raviraj was to visit the United Nations offices here, along with a few of his colleagues, to seek help in getting the Sri Lankan army to stop indiscriminate attacks on minority Tamil populations in the north and east of the island.

PERU: Will Agro-Export Programme Benefit All Farmers?

The poor campesino exporting his products to the world is one of the images most highly touted by Peruvian President Alan García. But his Sierra Exportadora programme, which begins to operate this month, runs the risk of concentrating its efforts only on those already able to compete in the market on their own.

POPULATION: Go Forth and Multiply Ahmadinejad Tells Iranians

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has once again stirred up controversy by opposing the country's long-standing efforts at reducing the population growth rate and by his proposal to make female employees, with children, part-time workers on full salaries.

DEATH PENALTY-PERU: Alan Garcia’s New-Found Faith in the Firing Squad

Within the first 100 days of his administration, Peru's President Alan García has put forward two proposals for applying the death penalty: for raping children and terrorism. But Congress is not in as much of a hurry to pass the president's draft laws as he is.

BOLIVIA: Cochabamba’s ‘Water War’, Six Years On

Six years after the people of Cochabamba reversed the privatisation of the city water company, access to water has improved and rates have been raised only slightly. However, there is still a long way to go.

ARGENTINA: Clamping Down on Human Trafficking

After two years of reports of isolated incidents, and a sustained effort by civil society to make human trafficking a visible phenomenon, the Argentine government has announced a policy for its prevention, helping its victims and punishing those responsible for the crime.

CUBA: Women and Alcoholism, the Enemy of the Lonely

Each story is more heart-rending than the last, and they all have a common theme: alcohol destroyed these women's lives, sometimes with the help of other drugs, and now they are trying to rebuild them.

RIGHTS: Women’s Groups Push for Gender Parity in OAS

Women's groups in Latin America have launched a campaign to press the Organisation of American States (OAS), which has never had a female secretary general, to live up to the principle of gender parity at the highest levels, where women are remarkable only for their absence.

DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Urban Renewal Plans Render Millions Jobless

The livelihoods of at least two million workers have been affected by a crackdown on unauthorised commercial properties in the Indian capital that was violently opposed this past week by mobs rampaging through the streets and torching public buses and blocking traffic.

IBERO-AMERICA: Summit Makes No Commitment to Legal Status for Migrants

The final statement signed by the leaders meeting this weekend in the 16th Ibero-American summit, the "Montevideo Commitment", includes no commitment to regularising the status of undocumented migrant workers.

URUGUAY: Immigrants Immobilised by Ibero-American Summit

The 16th Ibero-American Summit of heads of state and government beginning this Friday in the Old City (historic centre) of Montevideo is affecting the normal social and working patterns of a handful of undocumented immigrants from the Andean region who live here, near the port.

ASIA: Workers’ Remittances as Development Funds?

Migrant rights activists are eyeing a regional conference starting here Monday to secure more protection for the frequently victimised overseas labour force. It comes as governments here, as elsewhere, are warming up to convert the millions being sent home by migrant workers for local development programmes.

IBERO-AMERICA: Diversity Descends on Uruguay

Indigenous and black activists, municipal authorities opposed to racism, Ibero-American heads of state and government, children for peace, members of the international business community and representatives of civil society are all flocking to Uruguay these days.

ZIMBABWE: Government Accused of Persistent Human Rights Abuses

"I was arrested a dozen times," notes Tapera Kapuya, a student leader at the University of Zimbabwe between 2001 and 2002, who says he was the target of both police and the Southern African country's intelligence agents.

COLOMBIA: Demining Agreement, a Field Test for Peace

Mine clearance in the Colombian municipality of Samaniego, announced in Havana by Colombia's insurgent National Liberation Army (ELN), is important but not sufficient to overcome the humanitarian crisis, a human rights activist warned.

JAPAN: Turning to ‘NEETS’ to Cover Labour Shortages

For the past four years, Naoko Suzuki and her husband Koiji have been trying various ways to coax their 26-year-old son to leave the tight cocoon of his room and join a training programme that may help him get a job and enter mainstream society.

NICARAGUA: Therapeutic Abortion Banned in Pre-Election Frenzy

Latin America is not the most liberal region in the world when it comes to abortion. But the decision by Nicaraguan legislators to hand down eight-year prison sentences to those who terminate a pregnancy to save a mother's life has astounded doctors, feminists, activists, diplomats and government officials alike.

HONDURAS: A Violent Death Every Two Hours

Despite a recent all-out offensive on violent crime that involved the armed forces and targeted mainly slum neighbourhoods, the number of murders continues to rise in Honduras, which along with neighbouring El Salvador and Guatemala is among the countries in the world with the highest homicide rates per 100,000 population.

LATIN AMERICA: Leading the Developing World in Preschool Education

Latin America is the developing region that has made the most progress in early childhood education, although improvement has been uneven, says the new global monitoring report on Education for All (EFA) 2007.

COLOMBIA: Senate, Civil Society Call for Prisoners-for-Hostages Swap

Lawmakers in Colombia have joined civil society groups in opposing President Álvaro Uribe's decision to stage a violent rescue of hostages in the hands of the FARC rebels and to cut off preliminary contacts with the guerrillas that were aimed at negotiating a humanitarian exchange of hostages for imprisoned insurgents.