INT’L LABOUR DAY: Old, Grey Japanese Make Way for Unskilled Foreign Workers

It can be seen as an International Labour Day bonus for those trying to seek their fortunes in Japan. Beginning May 1, Tokyo will be less fussy with unskilled foreign workers and start opening its labour market doors to them to ward off a looming demographic crisis.

CUBA: April Showers Finally Bring Hope to Drought-Stricken City

Some ran outside to take showers under the rain, other scrambled to collect every last drop in plastic tanks, pails, pots or any other container at hand, and quite a few seemed to be living one of the happiest moments of their lives: for the first time in months, rain was finally falling in this drought-stricken city in eastern Cuba.

DISARMAMENT: Fighting the Global Scourge of Small Arms and Light Weapons

The real weapons of mass destruction are small arms and light weapons, which kill half a million people around the world every year, according to the international movement pushing for greater control over the trade in these instruments of death.

DEVELOPMENT-MOROCCO: From Shantytowns to ‘Cement-Ghettos’

Tragedies have served as reminders of the problems associated with Morocco's slums, but planning remains inadequate, say experts. Moving impoverished families en masse from shanties to new but poorly constructed buildings won't resolve the tensions.

/ARTS WEEKLY/THEATRE-ARGENTINA: Relocated Town Searches for Its Roots – Underwater

When the water level is low, what is normally a lake becomes a vast expanse of rubble, where the residents of Federación, in eastern Argentina, search for traces of the town submerged almost three decades ago to build the Salto Grande dam, on the border with Uruguay.

POPULATION: Fast Growth in Asia’s Silver-Haired Generation Worries Experts

An enduring image that has helped to define Asian societies - of ageing parents being cared for by their grown-up children - is coming under scrutiny in the wake of the region's ballooning silver-haired generation.

CULTURE: Class, Not Race, War Grips Zimbabwe

Blamed, along with the opposition party, for a lot that has gone wrong in Zimbabwe, many among the white minority have packed their bags and left.

MIGRATION-US: Beyond Bars

Before Sep. 11, 2001, few people in the United States had heard of immigration detention, but in fact, a secretive parallel prison system run by the U.S. government has existed for more than two decades, says author Mark Dow.

MIGRATION-BRAZIL: The Deadly Lure of the "Gold Curtain"

-"America", the latest hit soap opera in Brazil, has yet to lead to a boom in emigration to the United States.

RIGHTS: Groups Come Together to Save Children From On-line Predators

Children's organisations are disturbed that an increasing number of children are being sexually abused on-line. For that reason they have come together to call on technology companies to make the Internet a safer place for kids.

RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Indigenous Groups Welcome Gov’t Decision on Reserve

Indigenous groups welcomed a decision by the Brazilian Justice Ministry Friday to formalise the demarcation of the Raposa Sierra del Sol reserve in the northern state of Roraima.

DEVELOPMENT: Millions Move One Way, Billions Another

Remittances from migrant workers are now almost double official development assistance, the Global Development Finance (GDF) 2005 report of the World Bank says.

BRAZIL: Landless Farmers, Indigenous Peoples Unite in Fight for Land

Landless campesinos and indigenous people promise to shake up Brazil throughout the rest of April and the first weeks of May, with a tent city in the capital, occupations of unproductive land throughout the country, and a march on the capital.

RIGHTS-US: Minuteman Border Vigilantes’ Bark Bigger than Their Bite

The Minuteman Project, whose volunteers have been attempting to track down undocumented immigrants along the U.S.-Mexican border since the beginning of the month, is apparently a far cry from the large, aggressive and effective campaign that it had hoped to become.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Lightning Did Strike Twice And Fear Now Grips Nias

''The government told us the next earthquake is 150 years away if at all. But look we have one big one every 100 days and many smaller ones everyday,'' said Rusli Gege, 72, owner of Lagundri Holiday Cottage, now abandoned and left to rot under the sun and rain.

BRAZIL: Death Threats a Fact of Life for Land-Rights Activists

Maria Joel Dias da Costa, president of the Rural Workers Union in Rondon de Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon region, lives her life under the permanent threat of death.

WORLD HEALTH DAY: There’s Nothing Natural About These Deaths

Although pregnancy-related complications kill 500,000 women each year, and nearly 11 million children never reach their fifth birthday, U.N. experts say this largely preventable tragedy is just not a high enough priority for many governments or the international community.

CARIBBEAN: Exodus of Nurses Costs Region Millions

Caribbean governments are grappling with the mass migration of nurses from the region - where it takes an estimated 35 years of remittances from a single nurse before the public investment in his or her education is repaid.

TSUANAMI IMPACT: Mental Health of Aceh Women Survivors Overlooked

Over a 100 days have passed since the Dec. 26 tsunami killer waves struck, wiping out over 290,000 lives. Though bodies have been cleared away and the homeless have found other places to live, the mental health of women tsunami survivors in the worst hit Indonesian province of Aceh remains precarious.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: 100 Days Later, Human Rights Still Elusive

While the transition from relief to recovery might be in full gear 100 days after the Dec. 26 tsunami ripped through the Indian Ocean coastline killing over 290,000 people, activists have revealed that governments are not paying much attention to the human rights concerns of survivors of the killer waves.

/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC-MEXICO: Indigenous Youngsters Conquer Audiences Everywhere

They learned to play music while playing children's games in the hilly scrubland of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, and although they are still just youngsters, they can read sheet music and execute works by Beethoven and Latin American popular music standards with equal ease.