RIGHTS: Where Leaders Outnumbered Refugees

A group of members of the European Parliament has accused Italy of masking miserable conditions at a refugee camp..

BRAZIL: Gun Ban Referendum Stirs Up Opposing Views

Brazil appears set to become the first country in the world to ban the sale of firearms as the result of a referendum, as part of a campaign to combat the alarming rise in gun-related deaths over the last two decades.

MEXICO: Deal With Tobacco Firms Violates Int’l Treaty, Say Health Officials

A deal struck between the Mexican government and tobacco companies violates the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, maintains the National Public Health Institute (INSP), although the World Health Organisation has failed to address the matter.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Prosperity Sharpens Caste Animosities

The acrid smell of assorted burnt matter still hangs heavy over the Dalit (broken people) quarter of this town, three weeks after it was torched by upper caste men who cared little that New Delhi, the capital of a country that aspires to world leadership, lies barely 90 kms away.

POPULATION: Bush Jihad Against UNFPA Enters Fourth Year

For the fourth year in a row, U.S. President George W. Bush has refused to contribute to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), providing 25 million dollars of the 34 million dollars that Congress had earmarked for the agency to the child survival and health account of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Going, Going, Gone

Since gaining independence in 1963, Kenya has held four elections. But, perhaps the most decisive ballot of all has been cast by citizens who voted with their feet - leaving Kenya for countries that seemed more promising.

DEVELOPMENT: Vietnam’s ‘Food Bowl’ Wetlands Under Stress

Vietnam's ecologically sensitive wetlands, which produce much of the country's food staples, including rice, fish and fowl, is now beginning to suffer the effects of over-exploitation.

RIGHTS: Unease Grows Over Thai Refugees in Malaysia

Uneasiness is steadily spreading through the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as ethnic disaffection in Thailand's southern provinces threatens to stain the country's laudable record in dealing with refugees.

HEALTH: Disaster’s Psychic Wounds Take Longest to Heal

Public anger over the failures of U.S. federal, state and local authorities to respond quickly to the massive flooding in New Orleans and the U.S. Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina can only deepen the survivors' lasting psychological trauma, says a Yale University sociologist.

MILLENNIUM GOALS: Poverty Is Not a Statistic

Fighting poverty requires, among other things, tools for measuring the phenomenon in all its complexity.

PORTUGAL: Second and Third Generation Foreigners

The growing influx of immigrants from former Portuguese colonies over the last half century has led to the emergence of a new status in Portugal: that of the eternal foreigner.

DEVELOPMENT: Family Planning Subtracted From MDG Equation

When the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were conceived by the United Nations about five years ago, the world body failed to single out the importance of a crucial socioeconomic factor in battling poverty and hunger: population growth.

CHILE: Paternity Leave – Five Short Days Represent a Huge Step Forward

Mauricio Muñoz's second child will be born in October. But this time around, he will be able to stay home with his wife during the first five days after the birth, thanks to a new paternity leave law that just went into effect in Chile.

MILLENNIUM GOALS-CUBA: Educational Focus Shifts from Quantity to Quality

Universal primary education, one of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2000, has been a reality in Cuba for so long that it essentially taken for granted, leading both parents and the authorities to shift their attention to the quality of education received by Cuban schoolchildren.

DEVELOPMENT: World Faces Prospect of Teeming Mega-Slums

A new report by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) warns that governments will have to take the lead in building some 96,150 housing units per day if the world hopes to avert a massive urban crisis in the near future.

THAILAND: Drug Runners Get Creative As Crackdown Intensifies

Customs officers manning the border post in this small town, on the international boundary with Burma, are on the lookout for people with unusual gaits because the chances are high that they are carrying packets of drugs concealed in their rectums.

RIGHTS-SUDAN: More Women Needed – At Peace Talks, and in Government

A meeting in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi has highlighted the importance of giving Sudanese women a greater voice in their country's political affairs, if Sudan is to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

POLITICS-DRC: Making Order Out of Chaos for the 2006 Election

Over recent days, thousands of people have queued at voter registration centres in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to ensure they can participate in a landmark poll scheduled to take place by Jun. 30 next year.

DEVELOPMENT: China, India Fail Their Children, Says UN

They may be the standard bearers of Asia's economic growth, yet the continent's two giants, India and China, have failed to ensure that such achievements benefit their children, says a U.N. report.

CENTRAL AMERICA: Gang Violence and Anti-Gang Death Squads

Human rights groups report the existence of death squads that have been killing suspected members of youth gangs in Honduras and Guatemala.

RIGHTS: Murder of Thai Imam May Spark Exodus To Malaysia

The assassination of an imam (Islamic religious leader) in Thailand's restive southern Narathiwat province has already spooked a group of 131 Thai Muslims to flee across the border into Malaysia's Kelantan state.