INDONESIA: Aceh Deal May Give Regional Parties a Chance

Devastating though it was, the Asian Tsunami brought the proverbial winds of change to Indonesia by focusing international attention on the festering conflict in Aceh province and creating conditions for a political settlement that may yet instruct other ethnic groups.

NEPAL: Hopes Depart With UN Peacemaker

After a week of political twists and turns, a top United Nations peace broker left here urging the major players to transform their words into deeds.

PORTUGAL: "Foreigners" in Their Land of Birth No More

Africans who have never set foot in Africa, Brazilians whose only knowledge of Brazil comes from TV or the stories of their parents and grandparents: these are Portugal's so-called second- and third-generation immigrants, who are not actually immigrants at all.

RIGHTS-US: Immigration Debate Misses the Point, Expert Says

As a nervous Congress was approving billions of dollars to make the United States safer in the wake of the London bombings, a nationally recognised authority on immigration detention charged that the rights of refugees, asylum-seekers and other immigrants are being ignored.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Smuggler Jailed But Iraqi Boat People Wrangle Rages On

The sentencing of a former Baghdad goldsmith for helping organise a people-smuggling operation that ended in tragedy has not quelled controversy over the Australian government's role in the October 2001 drowning of 353 Iraqi asylum-seekers on their way to this country from Indonesia.

PORTUGAL: Economic Woes Could Spur New Boom in Emigration

Cheap textiles from China and India are flooding Portugal, while multinational textile firms are moving their Portuguese operations to countries like Romania, Bulgaria and Morocco to boost profit margins - a combination that is triggering a new wave of emigration.

WOMEN-CUBA: Nobel Peace Nominee Defends Diversity

Nearly 20 years ago, when Lizette Vila began to work in Cuba with the disabled, transvestites, people living with HIV and alcoholics, she avoided talking about minorities, because "the word in itself was a kind of discrimination."

HEALTH: Indonesia Grapples with Polio Resurgence as Neighbours Watch

It was a TV news report on children dying after being vaccinated against polio, the crippling paediatric disease, that 40- year-old Sius decided that he would not allow his youngest child to be given a dose during a vaccination round late June.

NEPAL: Refugee Crisis Builds Up as Civil War Rages On

A little over a year ago, Laxmi Budha had everything going for her. The wife of a village politician-cum-trader in Nepal's far-west Humla district, she ran her husband's commodity dealership while he tended to the people on behalf of the Nepali Congress party.

HEALTH-THAILAND: HIV/AIDs Stalks Burmese Migrant Workers

It was fear that drove Ma Ne from her home in Burma's Mon state to this port town famous for its seafood processing factories. She wanted to escape the forced labour policy of the Burmese military regime.

DEVELOPMENT: Rising Population Threatens Global Security

The world's rapid population growth, predicted to rise from the current 6.5 billion people to about 9.1 billion by the middle of the century, could have "serious security consequences" not only for a country or region but for the entire world, a new report warns.

ENVIRONMENT: Indonesians Caught Between Poverty and High Water

For several weeks now, Soesi Trisnosiswoyo, 63, has been anxiously calling up officers manning floodgates at Manggarai, South Jakarta and at Depok, West Java daily to check on water levels.

ASIA: Dons Take Second Look at Gay, Lesbian Studies

Dede Oetomo, an openly gay Indonesian anthropologist, quit his post at a major university in his country when his request for a new academic programme - a masters degree in sexuality - was turned down.

ECUADOR-COLOMBIA: Effects of Armed Conflict Spill Across Border

Heavy fighting in recent days between guerrilla groups and the army in south-western Colombia has driven scores of people across the border into neighbouring Ecuador, as well as sparking diplomatic frictions between the two countries.

POPULATION: Intermarriage Moving US from Salad Bowl to Melting Pot

The number of inter-racial marriages in the United States increased more than ten-fold between 1970 and 2000, according to a new report which concludes that U.S. attitudes towards inter-racial dating and marriage has undergone a "sea change" over the past generation.

RIGHTS-EUROPE: Migrants Avoid Drowning, Only to Face Deportation

Leading human rights groups say European Union proposals to stop illegal immigrants entering the bloc from Libya are ''irresponsible''.

G8 SUMMIT: Detention of Asylum-Seekers a “Shame”

Some 3,000 people marched Tuesday on what they said is "the shame of Scotland," the Dungavel detention centre for asylum-seekers. The protesters want the centre shut down - and to send a message to the G8 leaders gathering Wednesday at the Gleneagles golf resort.

HEALTH: Religion Lends Shelter, Activism to HIV/AIDS

Sneha Samaj, an HIV-positive woman from Nepal, attends a spiritual class once a month. There, she reads the Bible and discusses the importance of compassion together with others living with HIV/AIDS, under the gentle leadership of nuns.

COLOMBIA: Indigenous Women Help Preserve Biodiversity

Indigenous people in Colombia's Amazon jungle region use a garden for just two or three years before abandoning it to clear a new one somewhere else, thus practising sustainable agriculture in an exuberant but fragile environment where the soil is extremely poor.

ARGENTINA: Hunger Is a Crime in this Food-Rich Country, Say Child Activists

"How is it possible that we could see so many cows and so many fruit trees from the bus when there are so many hungry children?" asked 13-year-old Cristian Beliz, upon arriving in Buenos Aires to protest the fact that in a country so rich in food, millions of youngsters have so little to eat.

INDONESIA: Rebuilding Education More than Rebuilding Schools

The more than 2,000 schools damaged in the December 2004 tsunami are gradually being reconstructed, but this does not mean that Acehnese children are now back in their classrooms.