PAKISTAN: Transgenders Make Their Presence Felt at the Workplace

Dressed in women’s attire and a nose-pin errantly positioned on one nostril, 38-year-old Shahzadi adjusts her ‘dupatta’ (scarf) over her head as she enters the office of Cantonment Board Clifton, a provincial government bureau that recently hired her.

RIGHTS-EGYPT: Families Uprooted as Sphinxes Revive

Hajj Khodari lifts a defiant fist at the demolition machinery now just meters away from his front door.

CULTURE-FRANCE: Alexandre Dumas Loses Colour in Film

A new film about Alexandre Dumas, the author of ‘The Three Musketeers’, has sparked a racial row here because a white actor is playing the role of one of France’s most-read writers who was of mixed race.

IRAQ: ‘Disgraced Soldier’ Fights Trauma With Documentary

A new documentary ‘Diary of a Disgraced Soldier’ follows the dismissal from the British army of an Iraq war veteran and his battle with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) linked to his videographing the brutalising of Iraqi youth by fellow servicemen.

BRAZIL: Carnival, a Complex Annual Revolution for Women, Gays

Fátima Oliveira, one of Brazil's few black women doctors, always goes to "the best carnival," in Sabará, a city of 130,000 people in the state of Minas Gerais, where "men dress up as women" at a celebration that is "very informal, very local, with few tourists."

EUROPE: Fight Female Mutilation Harder Activists Urge EU

With hundreds of thousands of girls and women believed to be at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Europe, rights groups have mounted a campaign to get EU leaders to stop what they see as a barbaric and dangerous procedure.

RELIGION-TURKEY: Alevi Future Bleak Despite Equality Moves

A political initiative to eliminate discrimination against the Alevi, Turkey’s main religious minority, risks being stymied by the Diyanet, the country’s powerful religious body that does not recognise anything but Sunni Islam.

HAITI: U.N. Supports Move to Protect Heritage

The United Nations’ cultural agency, UNESCO, and the government of Haiti have joined forces to try to safeguard and protect the Caribbean nation’s artistic heritage in the wake of the Jan. 12 earthquake which destroyed not only countless lives but also many national art treasures.

RELIGION: Young Western Muslims Fight Misperceptions

Islamophobia is rising in the West, and sectarian clashes have undermined unity in the Muslim world, but there is hope from "within", says a group of young Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow (MLTs) working to address these problems.

CULTURE: Asia Lets the Year of the Tiger Roar

The impact of the global recession may still be around, but Chinese communities all over Asia are bent on letting the Year of the Tiger come in with a festive, prosperous roar on Sunday.

BALKANS: Arrest of Wahhabis Highlights Extremist Threat

The arrest of seven Wahhabis, following a police crackdown on the remote Bosnian village of Gornja Maoca, has raised concerns over the continued presence of Islamist fundamentalists who first arrived in the country during the bloody 1992-1995 Balkans war.

RELIGION: Fighting Hunger – A Matter of Faith

The world's major religions might disagree on theology and matters like the foods we ought to eat and the days we should rest on, but when it comes to fighting hunger, they see eye to eye.

CHILE: Stop Treating Community Broadcasters as Criminals, Say Activists

Criminal law should not be used against freedom of expression, nor to silence community radio stations in Chile, say activists and journalists in response to closures of community radio outlets in this South American country.

MUSIC-BRAZIL: ‘Enchanted’ Guitars for Social Change

Perfectly in tune, in spite of the off-key world of Terra Encantada ("Enchanted Land"), a shanty town in this Brazilian city, the guitars of Daniel Sant'Anna's orchestra strike up the "Ode to Joy", played by children and teenagers who are looking for a way forward in their lives.

ROMANIA: Starting Early on Human Rights With School Textbook

A textbook on human rights activism, being introduced in Romanian schools this year, steers away from preaching and uses interviews with global and local rights activists to suggest how young people may get involved.

MEXICO: Street Stalls, Web Visible Face of Neo-Nazism

Street stalls in the centre of the Mexican capital openly display books and publications that are sympathetic to Adolf Hitler and Nazism, indicating that there is public demand for such items.

DEVELOPMENT: Natural Dye Omnibus Draws Top Researchers to India

A 15-volume documentation of 3,000 natural dyes by a 19th century British textile entrepreneur will be the focus of an upcoming international seminar on natural dyes in India.

THAILAND: Talk of the Next Coup Raises Political Temperature

A Thai national habit of openly speculating if this South-east Asian kingdom is on the verge of its next coup d’etat is in full flight.

BALKANS: Moderate Patriarch Sets New Course for Serb Church

The enthronement of a moderate as patriarch of the influential Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) has raised hopes for the planned integration of the country with the European Union (EU) and for Serbs coming to terms with the bloody Balkans wars of the 1990s.

PAKISTAN: Mental Illness among Women: Gender-Driven?

No sooner does a visitor step into the facility than a surreal scene unfolds: The sound of laughter, the sight of ready smiles and vigorous, pumping handshakes mix with the acrid odor of an unwashed human body and the unbearable stench of neglect that in turn combines with the heavy smell of medicine.

FRANCE: Burqa Ban Keeps Immigration Issue Alive

With the French regional elections coming up in March and a debate on national identity raging, the burqa polemic is keeping the immigration and "values" issue alive here.