CULTURE-LATIN AMERICA: Indigenous Languages in Final Throes

Hundreds of languages disappeared from Latin America and the Caribbean over the past 500 years, and many of the more than 600 that have survived could face the same fate in the not-so-distant future.

JAPAN: Foster Parents in New Role as Population Slumps

A government plan to boost Japan's fledgling foster parent system as a means of stemming the population slide has revived the social debate on abortion and sex education for teenagers.

REFUGEES: Colombian Conflict a Challenge for Neighbours As Well

Those displaced by the violence in civil war-torn Colombia are in need of assistance, not only within the country itself, but in neighbouring nations in the Andean region, said the head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Americas bureau.

PAKISTAN: Tackling Quake Trauma With Cameras

''I fainted as the school collapsed. When I woke up I found myself outside the school. The roads were blocked. There were so many dead bodies and we had to walk over them. I was crying. Even now, tremors remind me of that terrible day. But I am not afraid because life is coming back to normal,'' said a child survivor of the Oct.8, South Asia earthquake.

POLITICS: Uganda Seeks Arrests of Rebels Hiding In Congo

Uganda has appealed to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to disarm and arrest rebels hiding in the vast central African country.

RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Indigenous People Flee Homes After FARC Killings

Wounaan Indians have been fleeing the jungles of the northwestern Colombian province of Chocó en masse since Sunday, after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) killed two indigenous teachers.

LABOUR-ARGENTINA: Bolivian Community Divided Over Sweatshops

The Buenos Aires city government's new offensive against slave labour has resulted in the closure of 30 clandestine textile sweatshops in the Argentine capital. But it has also caused divisions in the Bolivian immigrant community: some denounce the exploitative labour conditions, while others desperately want to keep their jobs, however precarious.

MIGRATION-US: Mexico Still Wants “The Whole Enchilada”

A bipartisan immigration reform agreement reached by the U.S. Senate Thursday, which would offer a path to citizenship for as many as seven million undocumented immigrants while creating a guest worker programme, met with mixed reactions in Mexico.

WORLD HEALTH DAY: Sandfly Plagues Afghans, Pakistanis

A parasitic skin disease spread by a hairy fly, that thrives in insanitary conditions, has assumed epidemic proportions in Afghanistan and across the border in camps for Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

SERBIA: Return May Not Be a Homecoming

Thousands who fled Serbia through the years of the wars in the nineties are due to return, nobody knows to what.

JAPAN: In Solidarity Against Female Genital Mutilation

When Hiroko Hashizume, 66, first heard of female genital mutilation (FGM) in some Muslim countries in Africa, she was deeply shocked and, later, overwhelmed by a desire to do something to stop the cruel custom.

ENVIRONMENT: The Big Melt Coming Faster Than Expected

Beaches, islands and even continents are shrinking as ocean levels rise ever higher due to the accelerating meltdown of the world's glaciers and polar ice due to climate change.

ECONOMY-MALAYSIA: New Deal for Rural Poor

After watching development pass by for nearly three decades, Malaysia's rural poor - mostly native ethnic Malays - can finally look forward to some goodies thrown their way.

BOLIVIA: Indigenous Majority Won Struggle for New Constitution

The roots of the process that will lead to the July election of a constituent assembly to rewrite Bolivia's constitution can be traced back to a 700-km 1990 march through Amazon rainforest and over the mountains surrounding the capital by indigenous people demanding respect for their rights over their land.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: China Has Issues Aplenty, None to Share

For a country in the middle of a huge urbanisation process, involving the movement of hundreds of millions of peasants to the cities, China had surprisingly little to share with its developing counterparts at the World Social Forum, that concluded in the Pakistani city of Karachi on Wednesday.

DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Last Ditch Try at Saving the Narmada River

For 20 years, thousands of people living on the banks of the Narmada river have kept their faith in India's independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, and used non-violence to protest the building of a mammoth dam that will submerge their homes.

COLOMBIA: Displaced Families Return, to Create ‘Peace Community’

With a mixture of fear, joy and sorrow and a deep desire to once again work the land, 17 rural families displaced by paramilitary violence in civil war-torn Colombia have returned to the lion's den to create a new "peace community".

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Different Continents, Similar Problems

There is much that separates Africa and Asia, not least ethnicity, culture and language. But, as the third and final leg of this year’s World Social Forum (WSF) gathers momentum in the Pakistani financial centre of Karachi, the hope is that civic groups will build on common aspirations for the two continents.

ARGENTINA: Transgender Community Faces Uphill Battle for Rights

Noelia Luna was born a man, but lives as a woman. She is unemployed, has lived with the same partner for 15 years and has three children. Her life seems fairly uneventful. But compared to other transvestites, transsexuals and transgenders in Argentina, she is a relative rarity: she is a survivor.

HEALTH: Brain Drain Hits Poor Countries Hard

Kenya is just one of many developing countries worried about the growing loss of healthcare workers, who mainly migrate to industrialised nations, said Dr. Francis Kimani of Kenya.

BIODIVERSITY: Local Action for Global Change

"Community Taba" consists of four Brazilian-style indigenous huts, built of wood and thatch, with earth floors. Inside the biggest and airiest one, small farmers, forest workers, fisherfolk and indigenous people exchange experiences and discuss how best to defend the planet's biodiversity.