RIGHTS-MEXICO: Major Blow to Child Porn Ring

Seven Mexicans who allegedly created and ran a child porn ring that sent on-line images to Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Chile, Spain, the United States and Venezuela were arrested in Mexico.

PARAGUAY: Second Paternity Scandal Hits President

Analysts in Paraguay expected Monday’s media coverage to focus on an announced shakeup in the cabinet. But reports that President Fernando Lugo fathered a second child while he was still a Roman Catholic bishop hijacked the news agenda and tarnished celebrations of the first anniversary of his historic victory at the polls.

MUSIC-VENEZUELA: “The System” Continues to Collect Accolades

"Another prize...let’s go get ice cream to celebrate," said their mother, and the boys jumped up to get their shoes on and head out for their reward, as the TV set in their tiny living room broadcast the news about the tribute paid at OAS headquarters to the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.

ARGENTINA: Bartering – Here to Stay?

In May, the bartering system will celebrate 14 years of new life in Argentina. After a peak in this form of trade following the country's late 2001 economic collapse, today it has a lower profile, though it involves tens of thousands of people around the country. But despite its survival, economists question its long-term viability.

ARGENTINA: In the Shadows of Mentally Disabled Siblings

"He’s the favourite. I always have to let him play," complains a boy with a mentally disabled brother. "Will she have to come live with me?" is a common worry among siblings of the disabled.

CHILE: Teachers and Students Fight New Education Law

Teachers and students marched in protest against a new education law passed by the Chilean parliament nearly three years after the so-called "penguin revolution," named for the uniforms of the secondary school students who led it.

NICARAGUA: Universal Primary Education Still Far Off

Damaris Aguilar had to pull her daughter out of school this year. "My oldest child is already in fifth grade; now we're waiting for the situation to improve so that she can go on learning," says the 34-year-old Nicaraguan mother of two.

BRAZIL: Child Rape Case Revives Debate on Abortion

The case of a nine-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather has revived the debate in Brazil on sexual violence, the need to reform the abortion law, and the shortcomings of the health system when it comes to dealing with the few cases in which abortion is legal.

Q&A: Play for Peace

Sport could be one way of alleviating the thousands of children drawn into armed conflicts around the world. Certainly Prince Feisal Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan, also president of the Jordanian Olympic Committee, believes this, and has been using sports to heal traumatised children all his life.

RIGHTS: Girl Soldiers Used Up, Then Thrown Away

To be a teenager and female is bad enough in the midst of a war zone, but it is often little better when the guns fall silent. Caught in a sort of limbo between childhood and adulthood, when it comes to peace and reconciliation, former girl combatants are often treated as invisible, advocates say.

RIGHTS: Human Slavery Thriving in the Shadows

"Dora", a young Mexican woman, was helped by another Mexican woman to cross the U.S. border in the promise of a good job there. She ended up in Texas, working in a sweatshop and not allowed to go out or even take a shower.

Q&A: "Sanitation Is Becoming a Social Movement"

While 2008 - declared by the U.N. as the "International Year of Sanitation" - came and went with 2.6 billion people, including almost one billion children, still living without basic facilities, UNICEF's sanitation and hygiene senior advisor, Therese Dooley, says there is reason for hope.

RIGHTS-US: The Children of Guantanamo

Legal experts and human rights advocates are challenging the public to remember Guantanamo's "child soldiers" when the detainees there are characterised as "the worst of the worst".

EDUCATION-ZAMBIA: Communities Doing it For Themselves

"My mother has no job and she cannot afford the cost of educating me and my sister at the government school," says 12-year-old Muyunda Nyamba. But the little boy is one of 37,000 children from Zambia's poorest neighbourhoods beginning the new school year calendar at community-run schools.

ZIMBABWE: Teachers' Strike Infringes Children’s Right to Education

The crisis of Zimbabwe’s education sector is deepening by the day, as the country’s schools remain closed due to the unremitting teachers strike.

DEVELOPMENT: Urgent Aid Sought for Victims of “Silent” Crises

The United Nations children's agency UNICEF said Tuesday that it must raise over a billion dollars this year to meet the basic needs of women and children in disaster zones worldwide, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

RIGHTS-ZAMBIA: Vulnerable Children Must Fend For Themselves

There will be as many as one and a half million orphaned children in Zambia by 2010. Deprived of adult guardians by the AIDS pandemic, many of these children will end up living in the streets of the country's major towns and cities.

SOMALIA: Poverty Forces Children Into the Streets

Hassan Maye, 13, has been fending for himself and his family in the streets of Mogadishu since he was ten. He shines shoes in the Sinai neighbourhood in the southern part of the Somali capital. On a good day, he says he earns 18,000 shillings - equivalent to roughly 50 cents.

HEALTH-LATAM: Too Many Women and Children Dying

"Latin America is not in the tragic conditions of the least developed countries, but an average rate of 130 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births is very high," UNICEF representative Egidio Crotti told IPS.

BOLIVIA: Mothers Teaching Mothers to Combat Malnutrition

One of every two children under the age of five in the southwestern Bolivian highlands municipality of Betanzos suffers the effects of chronic malnutrition.

ARGENTINA: Ecoclubs Draw Youngsters into Environmental Leadership

Ecoclubs, an international social movement of teenagers and young people who work with their communities to enhance quality of life through environmentally-related initiatives, while developing their own potential for leadership and action, were born in Argentina 16 years ago and have since expanded to 30 countries in Latin America, Europe and Africa.