POPULATION-SOUTH AFRICA: Inter-Country Adoption a Last Resort, or Best Hope?

It seems an obvious response to a pressing problem. If there are thousands of orphaned children in South Africa who cannot find a home in their extended families, then why not place more emphasis on adoption? And if adoptive families cannot be found locally, why not look abroad?

POLITICS-IRAQ: Sunni Strategy Shifts Toward Voter Turnout

Despite last-minute maneuvering by Shiite and Kurdish leaders to offer the possibility of further changes in Iraq's draft constitution, and warnings by foreign jihadists against participation, all indications are that Sunnis will turn out in large numbers Saturday to cast ballots in the country's referendum.

/CORRECTION**/AGRICULTURE-U.S.: The Organic Crops of Farmer John

The eccentric life of farmer John Peterson, from the central U.S. state of Illinois, is the centrepiece of an award-winning documentary film that tracks the decline of family farms in the United States, and - in a surprise twist - a new resurrection.

EDUCATION-SOUTH AFRICA: The Past Isn’t History Yet

Clever student, top grades, demanding university course...For anyone in this position, using a cheque book or managing medical insurance should be a cinch, right?

RELIGION: Venezuela to Expel U.S. Evangelical Group

Venezuela will expel the U.S. evangelical group New Tribes Mission, which has been active in indigenous communities along the southern border with Colombia and Brazil since 1946, President Hugo Chávez announced Wednesday.

JAPAN: Rising Juvenile Violence Linked to Internet Games

A recent spate of horrifying murders, committed by youngsters who killed their friends or parents, has shaken Japan's pride in its supposedly disciplined and harmonious society and prompted calls to examine underlying causes.

POPULATION-BRAZIL: Reaching Out to Young Men to Fight Gender Violence

Watching his mother receive frequent beatings at the hands of his stepfather, until she finally lost her hearing in one ear, made him a quiet teenager who keeps his gaze glued to the floor.

SOUTH AFRICA: Putting Gender Equality at the Forefront of Local Government

A ground-breaking gender equality training course for local government officials has wrapped up in South Africa's financial capital, Johannesburg.

COMMUNICATIONS: The Struggle for Real Control Over the Virtual World

The real world is involved in a battle for control over the virtual world, one of the central issues to be dealt with at the Nov. 16-18 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in the Tunisian capital.

/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE: Mexican Food Vying for World Cultural Heritage

Mexican cuisine is such an integral part of the country's centuries-old cultural traditions that the government believes it should be included on UNESCO's list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM: Documentaries Portray an Ailing Planet

Global warming is a life and death issue for the people of Tuvalu, as rising sea levels slowly drown their low- lying island nation in the South Pacific.

POLITICS: Malaysia, Thailand Refugee Row Deepens

A diplomatic row between Thailand and Malaysia over the fate of 131 Thai Muslims who fled to Malaysia in August, allegedly to escape ethnic violence and repression, has worsened as it begins to gain international attention.

CULTURE: Hotugandans.com + Red Pepper = Controversy

The spread of the internet has opened Uganda to a vast array of trends and influences that would have had little effect in previous years. However, a good many citizens who have peered into this brave new world are not sure they like what they see - especially the two pornography sites featuring Ugandans that took the country by surprise recently.

POLITICS-US: Storm Relief Funds Earmarked for Faith Groups

Nearly a month after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared that it would use taxpayer money to reimburse faith-based organisations for the services they rendered in the aftermath of the hurricane.

ECONOMY: Bali Bounces Back, Slowly

These days an unexpected high tide or a flaw in the perfect blue waves, that lap gently at this famed beach, is enough to make tourists, as well as local people, jumpy.

COMMUNICATIONS-LATIN AMERICA: Mobile Phones Only a Partial Solution

The statistics seem to reflect encouraging progress: the number of telephones per 100 inhabitants rose from 23.12 to 52.7 in South America between 1999 and 2004, while Central America experienced a leap from 17.24 to 47.9, more than tripling the population's access to telephone service.

ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Lula Persuades Bishop to Call Off Hunger Strike

After reaching an agreement with the government, Brazilian Bishop Luiz Flavio Cappio called off a hunger strike that he had begun 10 days earlier to demand a halt to a project to divert part of the flow of the Sao Francisco River to other areas in Brazil's semiarid northeast.

/ARTS WEEKLY/BOOKS: Split By Leftists and Fanatics

Flush after a court order lifting a ban on one of her many controversial books and sitting in the company of her Indian friends in this eastern city, Taslima Nasreen had every reason to look smug.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ARTS-AFRICA: Images From a Forgotten War

Five photojournalists are hoping their work will refocus the world's attention on the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where "millions have died in little more than seven years while we caress the cat and fret over which disaster to watch on television".

/ARTS WEEKLY/MEXICO: Special Cows for a Special Cause

The streets of the Mexican capital are about to be invaded by a herd of roughly 250 life-sized fibreglass cows, each of them comprising a unique work of art.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM: A Day Six Years in the Making

A new documentary titled "Peace One Day" portrays one man's six-year struggle to convince world leaders to establish an international day of global ceasefire and non-violence.