HEALTH-TANZANIA: A Hazardous Route to the Cradle

Tatu Shabani Tumbo's first born was diagnosed with strength-sapping anaemia, and died a toddler. Doctors had no medical explanation for the sudden death of her second child at age one. She then tried to get pregnant a third time, initially without success.

CHILE: Thousands Protest Ban on "Morning-After" Pill

More than 15,000 people marched in the Chilean capital Tuesday evening to protest a Constitutional Court ruling that banned the free distribution of the "morning-after" pill by the public health system.

DEVELOPMENT: Family Planning Gets Mere Sliver of Aid Pie

The United Nations warns that a sharp decline in international funding for reproductive health is threatening global efforts to reduce poverty, improve health and empower women worldwide.

UGANDA: “God Should Be So Kind That I Can Have Contraceptives”

For many of Africa's women, getting access to family planning services is difficult at the best of times. When war intervenes they can find themselves without any services at all, even as they become more vulnerable to sexual violence - the situation in northern Uganda being a case in point.

RIGHTS: U.N. Budgeting Bypasses Women

When the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) holds a two-week session beginning next Monday, one of the lingering issues high on the agenda will be the continued under-funding of women’s activities at the United Nations.

RIGHTS-AFRICA: No Sex, Please – You&#39re HIV-Positive

HIV/AIDS policies and programmes disregard the sexual needs of people living with the virus, claim a number of HIV-positive women who attended the third Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights - held this week in Nigeria.

HEALTH-SPAIN: Abortion – Education not Repression, Say Activists

Abortion clinics in Spain went on a five-day strike Tuesday to protest arrests of clinic personnel in Barcelona, the capital of the northeastern region of Catalonia.

AFRICA: Money, Media and Tradition Complicate Women&#39s Political Aspirations

The challenges confronting women politicians in Africa were given an airing recently during a press conference in South Africa's commercial hub, Johannesburg.

LATIN AMERICA: Prizes for Communities Fighting Exclusion

They work in the deep heartland of Brazil, or in urban slums. They all seek social inclusion, and their starting point is the bottom of the social ladder, with people who have a wide experience of life, contrasting with their short years.

Q&A: "A Threat to One Is a Threat to All"

The past year has marked the half-way point for realisation of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The eight goals were agreed on by global leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, with 2015 set as the deadline for achieving the MDGs.

NICARAGUA: At-Risk Pregnancy Means Death or Prison

Nearly 90 women have died in Nicaragua as a direct or indirect result of the repeal, one year ago, of the legislation permitting abortion in cases of risk to the mother’s health, according to women’s and human rights groups.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Tortured Labour, Stolen Newborns

"Torture with the electric prod when she was close to term induced accelerated labour," says the report "Maternidades Clandestinas" (Motherhood in Clandestine Prisons), which tells the stories of dozens of women illegally imprisoned during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship.

DEVELOPMENT-SWAZILAND: Water – "Just a Matter of Delivery"?

The main religious ceremony of the Swazi people is the "Incwala" or ‘Festival of the First Fruits’, held in late December. Dressed in traditional attire, tens of thousands of Swazi men and women dance and chant prayers to their ancestors. They seek good rains that will ensure abundant crops.

HEALTH-PARAGUAY: Hopes of Meeting Millennium Goals Slipping Away

In spite of official claims to the contrary, it is becoming less and less likely that Paraguay will meet the health goals the United Nations member countries committed themselves to achieve by 2015, experts say.

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.

SIERRA LEONE: A Women&#39s Issue That Women Are Wary of Campaigning About

Female genital mutilation (FGM) can make sex painful, complicate childbirth, lead to urinary tract infections, enable the transmission of HIV - and induce a host of other ills. So, promising to fight this practice should be a winning strategy for someone hoping to be elected to parliament this Saturday in Sierra Leone - where about 90 percent of girls and women undergo FGM, according to rights watchdog Amnesty International.

DEVELOPMENT-TANZANIA: More Women Dying Preventable Deaths

"I began walking when I felt contractions. I delivered on the roadside five kilometres from the hospital," says the 22-year-old Veronica Joseph.

WORLD POPULATION DAY: Enlightened Men Prescribed for Maternal Health

What is a common factor in ensuring that women do not marry too young, do not have more children than they can cope with, do not die giving birth - and contract HIV in smaller numbers? Men.

SOUTH AFRICA: "You Cannot Keep People Away From Settling in Cities"

Population issues are in the spotlight at present with the recent release of the United Nations Population Fund's annual report - and World Population Day, to be commemorated Jul. 11.

DEVELOPMENT-MOZAMBIQUE: An MDG Temperature Check Gives Mixed Results

Only about 30 percent of Mozambicans think that their quality of life has improved since 2000, the year when the international community agreed on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), while about 42 percent believe life has not changed.

HEALTH-MOZAMBIQUE: Stopping Death With a Net

Each time she has been pregnant, 20-year-old Isaura Paulina has fallen sick with malaria. Malaria was probably the cause of her two miscarriages and the low birth weight and frailty of her baby Belinda. She only weighed two kilograms at birth and now also has malaria.