BRAZIL: Warning – These Computers Come With Strings Attached

The declaration the Dell computer maker is requiring its Brazilian customers to sign, promising their computers will not be exported to the "axis of evil" or used for weapons development, according to reports, highlights the difficulties faced by scientific research due to U.S. geopolitical considerations.

RIGHTS: &#39No Safe Cities Without Justice&#39

The urban poor are the worst affected by crime, natural disasters and insecurity, says the Global Report on Human Settlements published by UN-HABITAT on World Habitat Day Monday.

ZIMBABWE: A Water and Sewerage Crisis That Goes "Straight to the Grave"

A young Zimbabwean couple glances furtively around before settling on a bench in a bare patch of ground that used to be a recreational park in Glen View, a sprawling, high-density suburb of the capital, Harare. It’s a Monday morning, and the two of them are struggling to come to terms with a strange sickness that has gripped their family. Every move they make in the direction of the Glen View One Satellite Clinic shows they are in great pain.

ARCHITECTURE-MEXICO: A Towering Success for Community Activists

The power of organised civil society has overturned the plans announced by the government of the Mexican capital to build the Bicentennial Tower, which was to be the tallest skyscraper in Latin America.

MEDIA-LATIN AMERICA: Bringing Millennium Goals to Life

"Daniel San Juan Tolentino dug his own grave. A pile of earth fell on him and buried him." So begins the article on child labourers in Mexico that won first prize in the "Latin America and the Millennium Development Goals" Journalism Awards, organised by IPS and UNDP.

ENVIRONMENT-AFGHANISTAN: Goodbye Stinky, Dry Latrines

The pervasive smell of human ordure is warning enough that this is a city that badly needs a sanitation system.

COLOMBIA: Local Candidates Sign Agreement with Civil Society in Slum

In Soacha, a violence-wracked slum on the outskirts of the Colombian capital, civil society groups persuaded six of the eight candidates for mayor of the municipality to sign an agreement on governance and transparency, ahead of the Oct. 28 local and regional elections.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Remittances for Development

Civil society organisations suggest that a plan be designed so that the money sent home by Dominicans abroad, known as remittances, will be used to foment development instead of simply going towards daily expenses.

RIGHTS -ARGENTINA: Twice Disappeared, Still Missing

One year after the disappearance of a former victim of abduction and torture under Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship, local human rights groups complain that the investigation into his current disappearance "is more of a formality than an effective inquiry."

PERU: Communities Say ‘No’ to Mining Company in Vote

For the second time in Peru, a mining project was rejected by local communities in a popular referendum. More than 90 percent of those who came out to vote in three districts in the northern province of Piura said "no" to the mining operations of the Minera Majaz company.

HONDURAS: Small Improvements in Hurricane Preparedness

With the 2007 hurricane season well underway, Honduras shows improved reaction capacity, but the country still lacks policies to reduce its vulnerability to natural disasters, such as preventing people from building in flood plains like those devastated nine years ago by Hurricane Mitch, say experts.

ENVIRONMENT: Worst Places on Earth Are Home to Millions

Rapidly industrialising India and China have claimed four of the top 10 most polluted places on the planet for the first time, according to a report by U.S. and European environmental groups.

ENVIRONMENT-MALAYSIA: Mega City Project Robs Common Green

Alarmed civil society groups are coming together to oppose a massive urban development project that could result in 33 tower blocks of over 40 storeys each being built on one of the last huge green spaces left on land-starved Penang island.

EL SALVADOR: Closing of Dumps Necessary But Not Sufficient

After several years’ delay, authorities in El Salvador are about to permanently close down the unofficial open-air rubbish dumps that have polluted the country for decades.

SPAIN: Deportation of Venezuelan Band Sparks Outcry

Four well-known Venezuelan folk musicians were deported when they arrived to perform at Spain’s Canary Islands, where the community reacted with anger and pointed out that the South American country took in tens of thousands of Spaniards during the 1939-1975 dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

GUATEMALA: Elections Hold Out Little Hope for Women Victims of Violence

Although they have taken a tough stance on crime, the leading candidates for Sunday’s presidential elections in Guatemala have not specifically addressed the serious problem of violence against women, which has cost at least 322 lives so far this year, nor have they proposed concrete measures to combat it.

VENEZUELA: Not Even Funerals Safe from Flying Bullets

At the wake of Yeison Mendoza, a 25-year-old construction worker shot dead in Petare, a poor neighbourhood on the eastside of the Venezuelan capital, prayers, tears and flowers set the atmosphere until hooded gunmen on motorcycles fired a hail of bullets into the Zambrano funeral parlour, killing three people and wounding another five.

COLOMBIA: Foster Families Help Child Fighters Rejoin Society

"I took in a 14-year-old boy. I did it for Colombia, for peace. These children need another chance, to be able to live and grow up as decent citizens," says Maria*, a 29-year-old mother of three.

RIGHTS-CHILE: Baby Steps, But Progress Nonetheless

Human rights groups in Chile are celebrating legal rulings in favour of victims of the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, and announcements by President Michelle Bachelet in the same vein. But they are critical of the slow pace of justice and the amount that still needs to be done.

IRAQ: With Donkeys for Transport, All Is Well

A brave new attempt is under way to project that all is well now with Fallujah. Residents know better - or worse.

ITALY: Windscreen Wipers Face Clearance

In several towns across Italy, forced windscreen wiping is becoming a criminal offence.