BRAZIL: Producing Guitars and Luthiers in the Rainforest

Cuban instrument-maker or luthier Raúl Lage came for six months, but has already spent seven and a half years in Manaus, the city in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. "The project is really fantastic," he says, explaining why he plans to renew his work contract again in September.

AUSTRALIA: Combined Effort to Tackle Human Trafficking

A new collaborative approach among Australian government, police and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is being developed to tackle the scourge of human trafficking.

BRAZIL: Spreading the Cultural Tentacles of Inclusion

"Negro F" tells how the Manos Grafite (roughly, "Graphite Hands") group started. In 1996, he and his friend Alex were walking along a street in the outskirts of the capital of the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, when they were struck by the colours and forms painted on the walls.

RIGHTS: Iran Condemned for Ongoing Juvenile Executions

A week after the execution of two juvenile offenders in Iran, who were under 18 at the time of their crime, a coalition of human rights organisations is urging the Iranian parliament to move swiftly to ban such executions.

HEALTH-SWAZILAND: AIDS Creating a Society in Distress

In a narrow and still winter-brown valley, little more than a crevice between rocky mountains, Gogo Ndlovu looks after her five young orphaned grandchildren.

FILM: Boys of Mass Destruction

In a twist of realism, a new feature film, "Johnny Mad Dog", uses a cast of actual ex-child soldiers from Liberia to portray the violent lives of youth forced to participate in armed conflict.

MEXICO: Police in the Dock Over Disco Deaths

Seventeen days after a police raid on a discothèque here that left nine young people and three police officers dead, Mexico City’s leftwing mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, announced sweeping changes in the discredited police force - including the dismissal of his chief of police.

AUSTRALIA: Indigenous Voices Lacking in Gov’t Intervention

While the Australian government insists that important progress was made in the first year of its controversial "emergency response" in the Northern Territory - ostensibly to protect indigenous children from abuse - activists are calling for affected communities to be consulted.

SOMALIA: Fighting for an Education

"I like to study, even though there is fighting everywhere in Mogadishu," says Bashir Gedi, a 15-year-old student in the Somalian capital. "Education is more important for me because if I can get an education, then I can help rebuild my country."

PARAGUAY: Fourteen Years in the Wilderness

Indigenous Enxet people are still waiting for the restitution of their ancestral lands, nearly three years after the Paraguayan state was convicted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of usurping territory and violating basic rights. Meanwhile, they endure overwhelming poverty.

HEALTH-PARAGUAY: Hospitals on the Critical List

Paraguay’s public hospitals are on the verge of collapse, due to a lack of resources for responding to the wave of southern hemisphere winter illnesses. The first measure to be adopted by the new government that will take over in August will be to declare a "social emergency" in healthcare, the future health minister told IPS.

LATIN AMERICA: Quality of Life at School Boosts Learning

The school environment is the factor that makes the greatest difference in student learning in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to UNESCO’s Second Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (SERCE). Equality in the education system, however, is still a distant goal.

DEVELOPMENT: Food Crisis Mortgages Children's Future

The devastating impact of rising food prices is expected to hit most of the world's 2.2 billion children the hardest - particularly in developing nations.

BRAZIL: African Rhythms Open Prospects for High-Risk Youngsters

"Axé" is a word that means "positive energy or life force" in the Yoruba language of West Africa, an important concept in the Afro-Brazilian "candomblé" religion. For hundreds of children and young people involved in the Axé Project, it is indeed a force for life.

SOUTH PACIFIC: Poverty Breeds Child Labour and Sex Tourism

Beyond the fabulous palm-fringed beaches and cascading waterfalls of the islands of the Pacific is a sordid reality - child labour and commercial sexual exploitation of children.

GREECE: And What an 18th Birthday Gift

Eighteen years after their birth in Greece, children of immigrants are suddenly made migrants, and asked to prove their right to live in a country where they were born and raised.

MIDEAST: Kites Rise Above Divisions

Mahmoud Abu Teior (13) knows it's Abdullah's kite up in the skies, though he has never seen Abdullah. But that kite rises into the skies from just that place on the Egyptian side of the border across from Gaza. And, Mahmoud knows Abdullah's voice because they speak sometimes. They have never met, and likely never will, but they are connected through their kites.

CUBA: Government Deports US Citizen Wanted for Child Sex Abuse

The Cuban government deported a U.S. citizen accused of sexually abusing a young girl in Costa Rica, less than two weeks after Washington included the Caribbean island on a list of countries that it says are not doing enough to combat child trafficking.

NEPAL: Education Far More than ABCs – Experts

Far more than just the learning of ABCs and 123s, education should be playing a transformative role in children’s lives if it is to ensure them a better and more ‘equal’ and gender-responsive future.

NEPAL: Gender Inequality in Education Has Deep Roots

A shortage of female teachers, lack of proper training, inadequate delivery of services and indifferent attitudes combine to add to gender inequality in education in this small Himalayan nation.

LABOUR-SRI LANKA: Working Children Get Second Chance

Sujit is 22-years-old and studying hard to graduate in 2010 as a professional electrician. The handsome young man, speaking at a workshop on eliminating child labour, talked proudly of how his life changed dramatically when he was given the opportunity to enter an electrical course and re-start his life again.