ASIA: Region Braces for Aftershocks, Tsunami Deaths Cross 15,000

Fresh tremors Monday prompted scientists to warn people living around the Bay of Bengal to stay inland from the coasts devastated by Sunday’s tsunamis, which have killed more than 15,000 people in South and South-east Asia.

RIGHTS-BURMA: The Trafficking Trap Persists in Border Towns

A Burmese woman sits on the wooden floor of a small room in Ranong, a Thai town bordering southern-most Burma. Over the sound of a whirring fan, the 18-year-old who is just over four feet tall recounts her past.

RIGHTS: Spain Has New Law on Domestic Violence

Europe's first law specifically cracking down on gender-based violence was unanimously passed Wednesday in Spain, and received a hearty welcome from activists, although it did not escape criticism from the right.

POLITICS: U.N. Admits Sudan Policies Failing

The United Nations is admitting that its policies in Sudan have failed following a rash of new problems, including renewed fighting between government and rebel forces, an escalation of violence against displaced persons and a possible flood of new refugees.

CUBA: Sexual and Reproductive Health Requires Cultural Changes

Adriana was just two years old when she asked her mother what "dialectic" meant. Now she is 14 and understands that it roughly means that "the world is in a ceaseless state of movement and change." But she has new questions.

MEXICO: Lone Hunger Striker Protests "Insulting" Minimum Wage

Politicians, church leaders and trade unionists have vocally criticised Mexico's new minimum wage, set at four dollars a day for 2005, which would only cover the cost of two tubes of toothpaste, for example. But only one man was moved to take the drastic action of waging a hunger strike on a busy city street.

DEVELOPMENT-SOUTH AFRICA: A Different Sort of Revolution

As the year hurtles to a close, a good many inhabitants of South Africa's commercial hub, Johannesburg, have deserted their home town for coastal resorts.

POLITICS: EU to Support Congolese Poll

The European Union has pledged support for general elections that are scheduled to take place in the Democratic Republic of Congo in June next year.

PAKISTAN: Looking at Maternal Health Through Gendered Lenses

After more than four years of marriage, 26-year old Meeran Harchand finally got pregnant only to give birth to a dead child.

POPULATION: India Moves to Give Women Equal Inheritance Rights

India, where extreme patriarchal attitudes prevail, is about to make a giant step towards gender equality by introducing a bill that would give women an equal share in family property.

INT’L MIGRANTS DAY: More Women, More at Risk

More women than ever, about 90 million, are living outside their countries of origin, where most of them are at risk of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation, says the United Nations in a report marking International Migrants Day.

BOLIVIA: Children Under Threat

A journalists' association in this Bolivian city granted an award this week to local reporter Abdel Padilla for describing the plight of newborn infants who are the victims of outright infanticide or simply allowed to die in Caripuyo, the country's poorest municipality.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Aboriginal Deaths in Custody on the Rise

The recent death of a young indigenous Australian in a prison cell in Palm Island, in the northeastern state of Queensland, has sparked renewed calls for the recommendations of a Royal Commission to be implemented in order to prevent large numbers of Aboriginals from dying in jails and detention centers.

INT’L MIGRANTS DAY-SINGAPORE: Place to Call Home for Asian Expats

Everyday in this tiny island republic of four million people, thousands of well-educated and highly-qualified Asian expatriates quietly go about their work, often mistaken as locals.

INT’L MIGRANTS DAY-JAPAN: Helping Filipino Workers Help Themselves

Rain or shine, Mercy, a 29-year-old Filipino domestic worker in Tokyo, attends free weekly computer classes for migrant workers. This programme, she says, will soon help her find a better job - paving the way for a more secure future.

POPULATION-INDIA: Traditional Midwives Still Vital for Births

Although she lives within a stone's throw of some of the finest medical facilities in the world, Sumitra preferred to deliver her baby boy, now six months old, in the familiar surroundings of her own modest home at Okhla, an industrial suburb in the Indian capital.

MEDIA-SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Imaging of Migrants Often Negative – Critics

Malaysia and Singapore may have become reliant on migrant labour to sustain their economies over the past 20 years, but social acceptance or appreciation of the value of their work lags far behind.

POPULATION: Materialism Drowns Out Young Cries for a Free Tibet

Almost half- a- century after following the Dalai Lama over the high Himalayas into exile in India, Tibetan refugees are finding it hard to keep their progeny strictly within the fold of Lamaistic Buddhism and committed to the cause of a free Tibet.

LABOUR-SINGAPORE: Unscrupulous Agents Need to Be Weeded Out

Kalaivanan's recruitment agent back home in Tamil Nadu, India, guaranteed him a salary of 336 U.S. dollars a month and at least one year of employment after he arrived in this city-state.

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY: India’s ‘Unseen’ Dalits At Risk of Being Forgotten

India's Dalit (broken) groups may live in the world's largest democracy, but their lives are shaped by a system of sanctified apartheid that threatens to marginalise them further as the country enters the era of globalisation.

WOMEN: In Bed with Bush for Four More Years

Four more years of President George W. Bush in the White House will pose a major obstacle for efforts to promote sexual and reproductive health in Latin America, according to Monty Eustace, the president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR).