SRI LANKA: Women Want Better Pay, Out of Free Trade Zones

The room is dingy and cramped. The walls are unplastered and its rough cement edges can scrape the skin easily. Furniture is strewn all over the place, plastic chairs stacked one on top of the other, boxes on top of them, handbags hanging from the wall and clothes on a rack. A small kerosene cooker is kept on the side of the room while a bicycle is parked next to the only bed in the 10-by-10-feet room.

BRAZIL: From Learning Circle to Flights of Artistic Imagination

Slender, small and long-haired, 11-year-old Higor Fonseca sounds much older when he talks. He has a great deal to tell, in spite of living in this small, sleepy town in the interior of Brazil, where most workers are employed as seasonal migrant labourers in other parts of the country.

DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Muslim Community Leaders Join AIDS Fight

Muslim religious leaders may seem too conservative to promote the message of safe sex to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic. But that image seems to be changing. Thanks to community-based organisations and young social entrepreneurs working quietly in villages.

LATIN AMERICA: Women in History – More than Just Heroines

Juana Azurduy or Manuela Sáenz, Bartolina Sisa or Gertrudis Bocanegra, Luisa Cáceres or Policarpa Salavarrieta - these heroines attest to the participation of women in the struggle for Latin America’s independence from Spain, a revolutionary movement that began two centuries ago this year.

INDIA: HIV-Positive Women Get User Rights to Till Land

Till four months back, 33-year-old Mugil hardly ventured out of her parent’s home, preferring to stay indoors and tend to the household chores.

CUBA: Raising Awareness about Racial Discrimination

Intellectuals and artists concerned about continued racial discrimination in Cuba are attempting to revive the Cofradía de la Negritud (CONEG), a "brotherhood" or association of black people aimed at raising awareness of the problem.

BRAZIL: Changing Lives Through the Power of Dance

"My family’s lives changed," said Maria Erilma da Silva, a mother of three girls and a teenage boy, listing a whole series of transformations, from changes in eating and personal hygiene habits to "the security of knowing where my daughters are" and even an end to her husband’s frequent drinking binges.

WOMEN-PAKISTAN: Domestic Violence Bill Draws Mixed Reactions

A historic bill seeking to punish domestic abuse still raises doubts about its ability to meet the goal it sets out to do: end violence against women.

CHILE: Building the Bicentennial Society?

The Chilean government has embarked on major works of infrastructure, national programmes and 28 competitions, in preparation for the 2010 celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the country's independence. But the bicentennial projects, which began this month, have drawn their share of criticism.

CHINA: Han Chinese Blame Regional Chief for Xinjiang Unrest

Chinese communist party’s monopoly on power in the restive western region of Xinjiang is now contested not just by the disgruntled Turkic-speaking Uyghur ethnic group but also by the Han Chinese, who up till now had shown support of Beijing’s policies and rallied to defend its interests.

JAPAN: ‘We Need Small Government That Can Restore Economic Growth’

Many of the old guards of Japan's longtime ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) were banished from the political landscape in the aftermath of the Aug. 30 general election in Japan. Ending the LDP's long-running grip on power is opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which won a historic landslide victory.

MUSIC-BRAZIL: A School Without Teachers

The participation of renowned professional musicians as instructors and special guests at workshops, instead of academic professors, is what sets Brazil’s Bituca University of Popular Music apart, and is earning it a reputation as a model of experimentation and excellence in music education.

ISRAEL: Madonna Applauded for her Silence

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il, Hitler, the Holocaust, ecological disasters, poverty in Africa, wars around the world, Obama and Martin Luther King: the appropriate images were all there, an overwhelming backdrop on the huge stage for the Queen of Pop's rendition of her song, 'Get Stupid' in Tel Aviv's Yarkon Park.

DEVELOPMENT-SRI LANKA: Three Scouts Trek 600 Km for Peace

It is a walk that no one has taken in the last quarter of a century. The nation having been beset by a bloody sectarian war, who would have thought of travelling the length of Sri Lanka south to north, let alone walk the distance, in the name of peace?

BURMA: Junta Targets Ethnic Rebels to Forge Unity Ahead of Polls

Burma’s military regime is turning to a familiar strategy – sending in troops – to impose its will on the north-eastern corner of the country that shares a border with China’s Yunnan province in the east. The move shatters a 20-year peace deal with an armed ethnic rebel group that controls part of that mountainous terrain.

Q&A: "Blogmailing" to Foment Debate on Cuban Filmmaking

Blogging has taught him to share his deepest concerns with people who think differently, to treat others and himself more compassionately, to learn from even the most impassioned disputes, and above all, to show that far from being the sole possessor of truth, he is desperately seeking it.

POLITICS-JAPAN: Untested New Regime Raises Fresh Hopes

The stunning victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) against the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Sunday's election has left Yasuyo Takahashi, a Tokyo suburb resident, more upbeat about the prospects for change in her country.

EAST TIMOR: ‘No Resolution in Sight on Issue of Justice’

Ten years since its people voted 78.5 percent in favour of independence, how has East Timor fared?

THAILAND: Lese Majeste Law Tests Mettle of Human Rights Groups

Thailand’s draconian lese majeste law is steadily emerging as a testing ground for the principles that renowned international human rights lobbies stand for.

BRAZIL: Music Education Opens Doors to Social Inclusion

"It takes us an hour and 20 minutes to get there. We have to walk, because we can't afford the 30-minute bus ride. But the girls never miss their music classes, not even when they have to go without lunch because they don't have time to eat after school," says their mother, Maria da Cruz.

THAILAND: Muslim Women Carve Leading Roles as Insurgency Rages

Till last year, the rice fields near this village that sits in the midst of a rubber plantation had remained abandoned. It was neglect that is easily explained: a steady rise in the price of rubber had been more enticing to the villagers.