RIGHTS-NEPAL: Exiles Vow to Support Maoist Blockade

Supporters of the rebel Nepali Communist Party (Maoist) living in exile in India say they are determined to back a crippling economic blockade imposed by their comrades in Nepal to protest the Feb 1 takeover by King Gyanendra and the subsequent suspension of civil liberties in the Himalayan country.

SOUTH AMERICA: Rains Claim At Least 80 Lives in Three Countries

The unusually heavy rainfall that has pounded Colombia, Guyana and Venezuela over the past few weeks has left more than 80 dead, 100 missing, 100,000 families homeless, wiped out a number of bridges and caused severe damages to roads and highways and tens of thousands of hectares of farmland.

RIGHTS-BRAZIL: State of Para Produces Another ‘Martyr of the Land’

The murder of U.S.-born Catholic nun and activist Dorothy Stang, which has had international repercussions, highlights the need for a government policy that would effectively reduce the violence surrounding conflicts over land, especially in the northern state of Pará.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Conservationists Battle to Save Mangrove Patch

When the Indian Ocean tsunami struck the coastlines of South and South-east Asia, areas with dense mangroves suffered fewer human casualties compared to areas without them.

POLITICS-PORTUGAL: Church Ruffles Feathers with Comments on ‘Right to Life’

In the 1965 film "Signore e signori" (released in the U.S. as the Birds, the Bees and the Italians) by Italian director Pietro Germi, a Catholic priest gives assurances in his sermon that "The Church doesn't get involved in politics, but it urges you to vote for a party that is both Democratic and Christian."

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Alone and Forlorn, a Survivor Pines for His Family

Muhammad Ali finished a plate of fried noodles, sipped a glass of cold tea and lamented about his misfortune in a coffee shop at the market in small town Lamno, about 200 kilometers south of the Acehnese capital Banda Aceh.

CHILE: Andean Indigenous Carnival Comes to the City

For the second year in a row, the Chilean capital is hosting an Andean Carnival held to pay tribute to Mother Earth and celebrate the ancestral traditions of the indigenous peoples of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and northern Argentina and Chile.

CULTURE-URUGUAY: Candombe, Llamadas Give Unique Touch to Carnival

Once a year, hundreds of Uruguayans of mainly southern European descent paint their faces black and play the drums alongside their Afro-Uruguayan neighbours.

RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: The Displaced Demand Reparations, and the Truth

A visitor to the picturesque Caribbean resort town of Cartagena does not have to go far to see one of the effects of Colombia's civil war - tens of thousands of people displaced by the violence, living in the vast slums that ring the city.

HEALTH-JAPAN: New Figures Prompt Fears of AIDS Explosion

Japan's new figures for HIV/AIDS are a cause for alarm with health experts indicating that the actual number could be far greater, given that many Japanese who may be positive have not yet been tested.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Tamil Tiger Killings Jeopardise Relief Aid

The murder of a high ranking Tamil Tiger political leader in eastern Sri Lanka two days ago is likely to heighten tensions between the rebels and government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga. It is also feared that this could cast a shadow over the country's post- tsunami reconstruction efforts.

IMMIGRATION-EUROPE: Opening Doors to Lock Them Tighter

The process of legalising the status of undocumented immigrants, which began Monday in Spain, will open doors to foreign workers who are already living in the country in order to close them more tightly against those who try to enter in the future.

PAKISTAN: Women Feel Shortchanged As Local Elections Near

Recent moves by the military-controlled government in Pakistan to reduce the number of reserved seats for marginalised communities in local government institutions has angered women, who are threatening street protests of what they call ''squeezing of their political space''.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Aceh Children Recall Sea ‘Swallowing’ Their Parents

Around two dozen boys mill around several wooden huts on stilts, which serve as an orphanage here, in this hamlet 20 kilometers south of the Acehnese capital Banda Aceh. Though they play and joke with one another, they share a common fate. All are survivors of the Dec. 26 killer tsunami, and all of them lost either one or both parents to the killer waves.

CHINA: Where Have All the Females Gone? Ask Demographers

Worried that a huge shortfall in the female population could cause social strife and affect the 'quality' of the Chinese race, China has decided to make sex-selective abortions a criminal offence.

MALAYSIA: Report Reveals Horrors of Foreign Sex-Slaves

Last November Zu Lian, 22, from a tiny village in China's southern Yunnan province and five colleagues pricked their fingers, dipped a toothpick in the blood and wrote a dramatic note to a Malaysian Chinese politician begging him to intervene and free them from an immigration detention camp where they were incarcerated.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Indonesian Red Crescent Targets Foreign Doctors

The Indonesian Red Crescent - claiming there is an oversupply of ''do-gooders'' who ''do not speak the language'' - wants all foreign doctors, helping the Indian Ocean tsunami survivors in Aceh, to leave and hand over their emergency medical functions to local doctors instead.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Ethiopia’s Rastas See the ‘End Times’

When news of the Indian Ocean tsunami filtered through to Africa the day after Christmas, Gladstone Robinson was playing Bob Marley's 'Natural Mystic'.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Dos and Don’ts in Visiting Aceh

If one wants to visit Aceh, probably to be involved in humanitarian work or just hang out as a ''tsunami tourist'', which is quite the trend here, there are some dos and don'ts they should consider.

RIGHTS-NEPAL: Tibetan Refugees Left in Limbo With Office Closure

Most people passing through the Lazimpat area in Nepal's capital hardly know that a very low profile organisation, close to the French Embassy, shelters hundreds of Tibetan refugees in its premises at any given time.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Tsunami-Like Devastation Hits Mumbai Slum Dwellers

The scene left behind once the bulldozers had plowed through the slums, here, resembled the devastation wrought by last month's Indian Ocean tsunami. The slum dwellers were not forewarned and they just ran, grabbing anything they could save from the destruction - a schoolbag here, a cooking pot there.