HEALTH-BOLIVIA: Subsidy to Cut Maternal-Child Mortality

A new Bolivian government programme will provide special payments to pregnant women and mothers with children up to the age of two, with the aim of cutting the country’s maternal and infant mortality rates.

POLITICS: Developing Countries Fight for Say at U.N. Crisis Meet

The postponement of a major U.N. General Assembly conference to address the global economic crisis and its impact on development is seen by some civil society groups and analysts as a sign of the conflicting interests between the world's richest and poorest countries.

INDIA: Computers Bring Jobs to Rural Women

What strikes a visitor entering the Source for Change business processing centre (BPO) in rural Rajasthan, a deeply conservative state where women are veiled and child marriage still rampant, is the near absence of men in the building.

EDUCATION-URUGUAY: Teaching Kids Forced to Grow Up Early

Tough and aggressive, 13-year-old José is a leader among his peers, and his classmates steer clear of him when he’s in a bad mood. When IPS visited his school in the Uruguayan capital, he wasn’t in his sixth-grade classroom with the rest of the students, but alone on the patio, which his head hanging down.

ECONOMY-CARIBBEAN: “We Are Not in Ordinary Times”

The news was not entirely unexpected. For Caribbean countries coming to grips with the ongoing global financial and economic meltdown, the diagnosis outlined by Dr. Compton Bourne, president of the region’s main lending institution, though bitter, was accepted as inevitable.

LATIN AMERICA: Remittance Drop Will Hurt Poor

The fall in migrant remittances to Latin America caused by the global financial crisis is posing a threat to middle and lower-income households, especially in countries where cash transfers represent a large proportion of GDP.

BRAZIL: 100,000 Hectares of Atlantic Forest Lost in Three Years

Stretched out along the coastal zones of 17 of Brazil’s 26 states, an area marked by a high level of agricultural and industrial development, the Mata Atlântica or Atlantic Forest lost more than 100,000 hectares in the last three years, mainly due to urban expansion and economic growth.

HEALTH-NEPAL: Baby Boom in Maoist Army

At the annual military parade of the People’s Liberation Army, Nepal’s ex-guerrillas, curious bystanders saw a young woman clad in military fatigues kiss and cuddle a baby before handing her back to an older woman.

HEALTH-INDIA: On the Rag Amidst Riches

For millions of Indian women the colloquial phrase 'going on the rag' can literally mean that, or using just about anything available to stay dry during menstrual periods for lack of access to modern sanitary pads.

EL SALVADOR: Funes to Take Over Country in Deep Crisis

President-elect Mauricio Funes of El Salvador is about to take over a country in recession, with an expanding budget deficit, growing unemployment, and soaring poverty rate.

NICARAGUA: Total Ban on Abortion Violates Human Rights, Says UN

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) described the criminalisation of abortion under any circumstances in Nicaragua as a violation of human rights.

RIGHTS: Recession Bringing Repression

The underside of the global economic recession is a worldwide repression of rights, Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan warned Thursday at the launch of the human rights group's 2009 report.

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

On May 24, one of the leading advocates of Africa's unity and liberation, Tajudeen Abdul Raheem, was killed in a car accident in Nairobi, Kenya.

DEVELOPMENT-URUGUAY: Not Just Another Slum

Beat the odds: that was what the residents of El Monarca decided to do, in order to turn their informal settlement on the outskirts of the Uruguayan capital into a real neighbourhood, with all the necessary infrastructure and services.

ECONOMY-MEXICO: Crisis Drives Up Poverty Rate

Between 1994 and 1996, the poverty rate in Mexico climbed from 52 to 69 percent due to a deep but short-lived global economic recession that broke out in this country. Now this country is experiencing another depression, which originated in its northern neighbour, and that will last at least until 2010.

RIGHTS-BURKINA FASO: Five Million To Get Precious Documents

Nearly 5.5 million people - mostly women and children - are to receive birth certificates in a country-wide exercise over the next 12 months. According to Burkina Faso's latest census, conducted in 2006, the rate of non-registration is particularly high amongst women and children, of whom three million (60 percent being girls) are not on the public registry.

BIODIVERSITY: Alien Species Eroding Ecosystems and Livelihoods

Continent-hopping alien species are worsening poverty and threaten the agriculture, forestry, fisheries and natural systems that underpin millions of livelihoods in developing countries, warn biodiversity experts.

ZIMBABWE: Long Road to Water Sustainability

As funds begin trickling in for Zimbabwe’s reconstruction efforts, the rebuilding of infrastructure battered by years of neglect is set to gobble a huge chunk.

LESOTHO: Cultural Beliefs Threaten Prevention of Mother-Child HIV Transmission

A health centre in one of Lesotho’s poorest districts has scored significant success in implementing a prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programme, but health experts warn that a number of factors, including cultural beliefs and stigma, threaten to derail it.

CLIMATE CHANGE: 200 Days to Copenhagen

With exactly 200 days to go before December’s crucial climate talks in Copenhagen, progress is steadily, though slowly, being made. Some issues, however - namely financing and the relative roles of industrial and developing countries - are likely to remain on the table until the end of the year.

Q&A: Timor’s “Extreme Poverty Is Centuries-Old”

Seven years after winning its independence following nearly five centuries of foreign domination, East Timor is firmly and proudly building its future, despite the heavy burden of widespread, deep-rooted poverty.