EL SALVADOR: Young People Get Summit, But No Convention

On the eve of the 18th Ibero-American Summit in the capital of El Salvador, President Antonio Saca still refuses to sign the bloc's Convention protecting young people's rights, even though the main theme of the meeting is youth and development.

HEALTH: The Global Killer You Never Heard Of

Although a safe and effective vaccine has been available for eight years now, 1.6 million people still die from pneumococcal diseases every year, making it the number one vaccine-preventable cause of death worldwide. More than half of the victims are children.

JAMAICA: Brutal Killings Put Focus on Child Protections

Stephanie Christian, a family life director at the Holy Cross Church in Jamaica, just could not understand why an adult would sexually assault a nine-month-old baby.

DEVELOPMENT: Signs of Hope for Ethiopia’s Children

Amid the hardship facing Ethiopia's children, there are signs that conditions may be improving and that children's lives are changing for the better.

RIGHTS: EU Parliament Acts Against Child Trafficking

The European Union needs to develop a programme against child trafficking, the bloc's only directly elected institution has declared.

EL SALVADOR: Increase in Poverty Driven by Soaring Food Prices

In the village of Talchiga in northeastern El Salvador, 20 families live in wooden shacks with earth floors, have no piped water, electricity or sewer services, and suffer from high levels of malnutrition.

DEVELOPMENT-SIERRA LEONE: Living Off Scraps

Each morning, Mariama Kamara and her two teenaged sons walk to Freetown’s main rubbish dump. Their mission: to dig through the mounds of garbage in search of scrap metal.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: New Methods to Identify Dictatorship’s Missing Children

DNA testing and court resolutions in Argentina have been key factors in speeding up the work of establishing the true identities of the children who were stolen from their parents, victims of forced disappearance, and given to other families to raise during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

EDUCATION-ZAMBIA: Food Insecurity Hits Schools

"Sometimes there is barely any food at home, so I only eat at school, at lunch," said Justin Banda, a 12 year old student, at Chikumboso school in Lusaka’s Ngombe township.

Q&A: "Violence Is Part of the History of El Salvador"

He says he has read the Bible three times and that gang members are "not only victimisers but victims of the system of violence" in El Salvador.

RIGHTS-NEPAL: ‘Inter-Country Child Adoption Policy Weak’

When reports in the Nepali and international media exposed a market in orphans, and the taking away from this country of children without the consent of biological parents, the government responded with a ban on inter-country adoptions.

BRAZIL: 'Social Circus' Turns Young Lives Right Side Up

Standing on your head, walking on stilts, juggling and doing balancing acts - life often seems like a circus metaphor. And for one Brazilian social organisation that is exactly what it is.

ARGENTINA: Soup Kitchens Feel Impact of Rising Food Prices

"It breaks my heart because I know these kids don't have anything to eat, but I can’t serve any more people," says Estela Esquivel, talking about children who have been turned away at dinnertime from the La Casita de la Virgen soup kitchen in La Cava, a slum neighbourhood on the north side of the Argentine capital.

RIGHTS-PERU: Military Wants to Keep Massacres Buried

The Peruvian army continues to withhold information from the legal authorities who are investigating the murders committed by members of the military during the country’s 1980-2000 armed conflict.

MIDEAST: Children Play with Death and Dispossession

Palestinian children continue to be victims of disproportionate and indiscriminate violence from the both the Israeli occupation and internal Palestinian infighting in the occupied Palestinian territories.

DEVELOPMENT: Millions More Children Attending School

Despite the world not being on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there has been real progress - even in some of the world's poorest countries.

ASIA PACIFIC: MDGs – Children Under Five Straggling

Children under five years across Asia and the Pacific are being left behind in the race to reduce poverty even as the region boasts impressive strides in meeting major United Nations development goals.

DEVELOPMENT-ETHIOPIA: Understanding Poverty's Impact on Children

When the school bell rings, Alemtsehay and her three younger sisters rush home to change out of their school uniforms and into tattered clothes to go out begging around Bole Road, one of Addis Ababa's smarter areas.

ARGENTINA: Children of Exile – Strangers Still

While perpetrators of human rights violations during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship have begun to be sent to prison, a new study has shed light on a less conspicuous aspect of the regime's legacy: the problems faced by the children of former exiles who are struggling to integrate into Argentine society.

NICARAGUA: Name and Identity for Thousands of Indigenous Children

Some 250,000 indigenous children and adolescents who had no legal identity in Nicaragua are in the process of being registered - an essential step towards achieving recognition of their basic human rights.

EDUCATION-MEXICO: Teachers and Students Failing Exams

Assessments of student performance at primary and secondary schools in Mexico have produced dismal results, as have evaluations of new teachers, who have to pass exams before being appointed to a teaching post.