CUBA: Officials Demand Explanations from US on Dissident Funds

The Cuban government demanded that the United States provide explanations for what it described as "obscure ties" between U.S. diplomatic personnel in Havana, "terrorist" groups in Miami and members of dissident organisations, in a case that has further heated up relations between the two countries.

SERBIA: Night Life Is For Museums

Serbs appear like some others to have taken to visiting museums during the night.

PAKISTAN: Water – At Much More Than a Turn of the Tap

For the uninitiated, it’s surreal: men and boys stepping out of their homes into the unpaved and narrow alleys of the Korangi Dhai slum in the wee hours before dawn, armed with rolls of colourful plastic tubing and heavy electric pumps.

EL SALVADOR: Poor Eating Less While Food Prices Soar

Eating less is the only option left to the poorest of the poor in El Salvador, in the face of the steady rise in global food prices, which has had an impact on the domestic cost of staples like rice, beans, tortillas, milk, eggs and bread.

INDIA: 'City of Joy' Turns Model for Street Food Hygiene

Ranjini Gupta who works with the urban development department located in the heart of this bustling city snacks occasionally at the street food stalls nearby unmindful of food safety concerns.

TECHNOLOGY-CUBA: University Opens Doors to Free Software

After years of deliberation, the University of Havana has finally decided to switch over to free software on its network of computers, virtually all of which are running the Windows operating system, produced by United States software giant Microsoft.

CULTURE-CHILE: Free Book Selections for 400,000 Families

The Chilean government has begun distributing carefully selected packages of books to thousands of low-income families. But the programme aimed at promoting reading is not without its detractors, who question the extent of its real impact.

RELIGION-US: Missionaries Look to Immigrant ‘Chinatowns’

As people rush in and out of butcher shops and bakeries on Brooklyn's Eighth Avenue, He Zhanglao tries to get their attention. He speaks in clear Mandarin, and listens carefully to their replies. But he's tall and blond, and sticks out in this part of Sunset Park, home to many Chinese immigrants.

POLITICS: 1968 and the Birth of Diversity

The year 1968 has become a symbol, but not necessarily one that is easy to sum up. High-profile violent events involving multitudes of people marked it as revolutionary, but it is hard to define the nature of that revolution. Endless enigmas and controversies still surround it.

HEALTH-KENYA: Months After Dump Scare, Problems Persist

Every day, the Dandora dumpsite in the eastern part of Nairobi receives 2,000 tonnes of rubbish - about half of the waste generated daily by the capital's 4.5 million people. The 12-hectare site is a low mountain of smouldering trash. Vultures and marabou storks circle overhead in anticipation of a meal.

BIODIVERSITY-US: Loggers, Owls Not Out of the Woods Yet

Some wounds heal slowly, and the wounds of the logging community on the U.S. northwest Pacific coast are still smarting nearly 20 years after measures to protect a threatened species devastated their industry.

RIGHTS-US: Hundreds Arrested Protesting Police Abuses

She was as happy and excited about getting married that day as any young person in love. But fate had something else waiting. Just a few hours ahead of her wedding, on Nov. 25, 2006, New York City police officers killed her fiancé Sean Bell in a hail of 50 bullets.

RIGHTS-US: Blacks Suffer Persistent Injustice in Drug War

African Americans have suffered much higher rates of arrests and imprisonment than whites in the nearly 30-year-old U.S. "war on drugs", according to two reports released here this week.

HONDURAS: Prosecutors on Hunger Strike against Corruption

Prosecutors in Honduras are on hunger strike to demand the dismissal of the attorney general and his deputy, for failure to investigate cases of corruption. Tension mounted when the president of Congress warned of possible intentions to break with the "constitutional order."

BOSNIA: A Tentative Rebellion Unrolls

It started with a murder.

PARAGUAY: Torture Victim Still Fears Colorado Party ‘Mafia’

The Colorado Party has become a "criminal mafia" during its 61 years in government in Paraguay, and it will continue to be a force to be reckoned with in spite of its defeat in last month’s elections, says Anuncio Martí, a Paraguayan citizen living in exile in Brazil.

ECUADOR: New Constitution Addresses Demand for ‘Plurinational’ State

Ecuador’s new constitution, which a constituent assembly expects to finish drafting by mid-June, establishes a united "plurinational" state, recognising equality along with ethnic diversity, as agreed between the government and indigenous organisations.

BOLIVIA: Violent Pro-Autonomy Election Day in Santa Cruz

At least eight people were injured in clashes between backers of the autonomy referendum held Sunday in the eastern Bolivian province of Santa Cruz and supporters of the government of Evo Morales from the country’s western highlands.

DEVELOPMENT-BRAZIL: Activists Opposed to Rebuilding Amazon Highways

Nearly four decades after they were first planned, three highways through the jungles and swamps of Brazil’s Amazon region are being rebuilt. Neglected in the past when they became economically obsolete, they are once again a focus of environmental criticism.

ARGENTINA: Training Health Agents to Reduce Child Mortality

An ambitious new programme for training health agents to help reduce infant mortality in small rural communities and indigenous villages, launched by one of Argentina’s best-known human rights groups, drew many more applicants than the organisers had hoped for.

EL SALVADOR: Gangs Are ‘Perfect Scapegoats’, Say Experts

El Salvador, a Central American country of 21,000 square kilometres bathed by the Pacific ocean, is the battleground of a shadowy war between mafias, street gangs and death squads, in spite of having formally achieved peace 16 years ago.