Challenge to Retain Zambia’s Teachers

Zambia's efforts to strengthen its education system will come to little if no way is found to retain skilled teachers like Caroline Chisenga.

ZIMBABWE: Uncertainty Over Women’s Place in Police Force

Women continue to join the Zimbabwe Republic Police, despite mixed reactions to their presence in law enforcement and allegations of abuse by fellow officers.

U.S. Inmates Exposed to Toxic E-Waste

Past U.S. inmates and prison staff in electronic waste recycling programmes face serious health risks after officials willfully violated health, safety and environmental laws, a new report has found.

Cubans Queue Up for Copies of New Self-Employment Rules

"They brought me 100 copies, which sold out in less than half an hour," the vendor at one of the Cuban government's newsstands told IPS, referring to the nearly 100 pages of regulations published in the government gazette. The people queuing up "just about drove me crazy," he added.

SRI LANKA: Widows Struggle to Put Life Back Together Again

Having to take care of eight teenage children is not an easy task for 70-year-old Yamunadevi (not her real name).

For Women, Dry Statistics Can Be Power

While women have made strides forward in areas like job market participation over the last two decades, in 2009 only 14 women in the world held the position of head of state or government, and of the 500 largest corporations, just 13 had a female CEO.

Migrant Workers in Mexico Left to Hoe Their Own Row

Every year since 1975, Castro Solano has left his home in the town of Tlapa de Comonfort, in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, to work in other parts of the country as a seasonal farm labourer.

ZIMBABWE: Woman Metal Worker Breaking the Mould

At a time when more and more women around the world are taking up jobs in male-dominated domains, 41-year-old Sithabile Ruswa is also making her mark, albeit far from the air-conditioned boardrooms usually reported on.

Proposed Pension Bill Outrages Malawi Workers

A draft pension bill has created great concern among workers in Malawi, with some hurriedly seeking early retirement before it will be passed. The bone of contention is a section pegging the retirement age for women at 55 and men at 60.

EUROPE: For Women, East Is Backward East

Women's rights organisations in Eastern Europe say they are struggling to overcome centuries-old gender stereotypes.

DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Micro-Credit Helping Farmers to Plough Ahead

Seventeen years ago it seemed like an impossible dream to provide thousands of low-income farmers with a way to borrow small amounts of money. But people working in the tea sector in the rural areas of central Kenya were determined to address farmers’ lack of access to credit. They started the Muramati Savings and Credit Cooperative Society.

LABOUR: Garment Workers of the South Unite

They left behind months or years of slaving away -- in some cases, literally -- in garment sweatshops, working long hours for little to no pay. But breaking free from modern-day slavery or forced labour wasn't enough for a group of textile workers from Argentina and Thailand, who have gone on to forge a new kind of cooperation reaching halfway across the globe.

ZIMBABWE: Debt Crowds Out Essential Spending on Health

Zimbabwe’s debt burden of about 8.3 billion dollars, owed to internal and external institutions, is crowding out essential national budget items such as health and basic services, with detrimental effects for particularly women.

Chilean Miners Rescue May Mark a Watershed in Workplace Safety

"This country has to understand that changes must be made," said Mario Sepúlveda, the second Chilean miner -- of the group of 33 trapped 700 metres underground for over two months -- rescued in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

U.N. Renovation Leaves Some Workers High and Dry

For more than two decades, he has served world leaders and diplomats who wined and dined here at United Nations headquarters in New York. Today, he is unsure how much longer he will be able to put food on his own table at home.

MEXICO-U.S.: Visas No Guarantee for Migrant Worker Rights

Mexican Alberto Rivero joined the ranks of seasonal workers in the United States in 2005, and for the last three years he has had to pay all the expenses associated with his visa, transportation and housing, although the law states that these are the responsibility of his U.S. employer.

LABOUR-CUBA: Torn Between Hope and Anxiety

The radical restructuring of employment launched by President Raúl Castro has Cubans, on the one hand, feeling anxious about possibly losing their jobs and, on the other, looking forward to testing the real scope of opportunities in the private sector, where an estimated 250,000 additional people may soon be working for themselves.

INDIA: Textile Industry Could Use Shot in the Arm – Experts

It is a sector that happens to be India’s second largest employer and its annual revenues are expected to grow three- fold within a decade if it gets all the support it needs. But major players in India’s textile and apparels industry say it remains low in the government’s list of priorities, rendering the sector incapable of realising its full potential.

US: NGOs Condemn Merger of Immigration and Criminal Justice

As two Democratic senators introduced yet another version of immigration reform legislation - and two Republican senators immediately condemned it - more than 500 not-for-profit organisations called on President Barack Obama to end what they called "the merger of immigration enforcement with criminal justice."

PERU: Women Farmers Dream in Organic Flavours of Coffee

It's Saturday and the women hurry in to the cooperative's warehouse in this rural town in southeastern Peru with their huge bags of coffee beans on their backs. Some come on their own, others are accompanied by their husbands or children. But they have all hiked long distances from their farms in the mountains where they grow some of the world's top organic specialty coffee.

BRAZIL: Oil Palm Industry Seeks to Atone for Its Sins

"Better 'dendê' than cattle," says Violeta dos Reis, who cooks and serves meals in the small eatery she runs with her husband in the community of Arauaí in Brazil's northern Amazon jungle. In this rural area, a new world is opening up for poor farmers.