COLOMBIA: Black Communities Organise in Country’s Poorest Region

During the "high season" of popular festivals in Colombia’s Chocó region, "pregnant girls as young as 13 start flowing in," says a nursing assistant in the obstetrics department at the hospital of the provincial capital, Quibdó.

POLITICS: Is There a Gender-Specific Leadership Style?

Is there a female way to lead? Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has raised that possibility in saying that she tries to lead through consensus, not by imposition.

POLITICS: Mum, Can a Man Be President?

"Do you think a man could ever be president?" the little boy in Ireland asks his mother. All his life he has only seen women presidents, currently Mary McAleese.

PORTUGAL: Gap Between Rich and Poor Yawning Wider and Wider

The gap between rich and poor is still widening in Portugal, the country with the greatest social disparity in the European Union. Despite having a socialist government in office for nearly three years, there has been no reversal of this trend.

CONGO: Fear, Stigma Undermine Fight Against Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission

At the Integrated Health Centre of Bissita, located in the Bacongo area of Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, pregnant women seated on a long bench wait to have prenatal examinations.

HEALTH-US: A Million Attractions, but Nowhere to Go

When New York City banned cigarette smoking in bars and restaurants several years ago, the sardonic television host Jon Stewart pointed out that forcing smokers into the streets outside would also help mask the city's ubiquitous urine smell.

ARGENTINA: Mixed Marks for Educational System

Successive economic and social crises in Argentina have left their mark on the public education system, which since the late 19th century has been a key factor of social integration and mobility in this South American country.

Q&A: Cape Verde – Good Student, Reluctant ‘Example’

Cape Verde Foreign Minister Víctor Barbosa Borges dismisses out of hand the label placed by various international institutions on this small Atlantic archipelago, which are calling it an example for the rest of Africa.

MEXICO: A Naked Call for Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Land

Every year, some 300 indigenous people from the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz march naked through the streets of the capital to demand land. But while their unusual form of protest certainly attracts attention, there is little chance that it will achieve their goals.

SOUTH AFRICA: Government Set To Reach Sanitation Target. Is it Enough?

The South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry has narrowly missed one of its most important targets, aimed at improving sanitation for the country's poorest people - but plans to make up the remaining ground soon.

DEVELOPMENT-BURKINA FASO: “Sanitation Costs a Lot, But It’s Not a Luxury”

For some in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, rainy seasons have spelt trouble - at least from the point of view of sanitation.

POLITICS-SOUTH AFRICA: A Trying Passage for Women in the Ruling Party

The past weeks have been tumultuous for women in South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC).

DEVELOPMENT: Qatar Pledges to Promote South-South Cooperation

"Despite significant progress in the South, the pattern of cooperation has not been commensurate with the comprehensive nature of the commitments contained in the various declarations and other documents on South-South cooperation," Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations, told IPS. "The existing capabilities and capacities in the South have not been adequately acknowledged and utilised," he added.

CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Support Pledged for Women in S. Leone&#39s Local Elections

Sierra Leoneans will doubtless celebrate the past year as one in which their country distanced itself still further from a war-torn past, by holding general elections in August that were broadly viewed as free and fair.

ZIMBABWE: Good Intentions Plus Poor Implementation Equals Dry Taps

A 20-litre bucket in hand, Abigail Shonhiwa ponders the stretch ahead in her journey to the next watering hole, a distance of about seven kilometres. Her suburb has been facing recurrent water shortages since 2000, in part because it is built on a plateau in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

SUDAN: “Contractors Have the Freedom To Do What They Want”

An oil-fuelled construction boom is giving Sudan's capital, Khartoum, an ever shinier veneer. However, some fear that this building spree is taking place at environmental cost.

DEVELOPMENT-SOUTH AFRICA: Could Water Meters Be Unconstitutional?

More than 300 residents of Phiri, one of the poorest suburbs in Soweto, demonstrated outside the High Court in Johannesburg earlier this month to show support for a campaign to have pre-paid water meters declared unconstitutional. After a three-day hearing, the judge announced that he would make his findings known early in 2008.

EDUCATION-US: Seminole School Thriving In Florida

Elementary school children in U.S. public schools are preparing for their winter holiday vacations, but at a charter school here on the Seminole Indian Tribe of Florida’s Brighton Reservation, the children are enjoying their education so much that some of them want to keep on attending classes throughout the holidays.

POLITICS-KENYA: For Women, Elections May Be the Milestone That Wasn&#39t

General elections are underway in Kenya, marking the end of a titanic struggle between incumbent President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, heading the Party of National Unity and the Orange Democratic Movement, respectively.

Q&A: PGTF Disburses $10M to 179 Regional Projects

"We have provided financial support to 179 South-South cooperation projects since 1987 in the fields of food and agriculture, trade, technology, energy, raw materials, technical cooperation, finance, industrialisation, and health," Eduardo Praselj, chairman of the Perez-Guerrero Trust Fund (PGTF), told IPS.

HEALTH-EUROPE: DJs Stage Hunger Strike for Improved Sanitation

In a six day hunger strike in cooperation with a Belgian and Swiss radio station, Dutch station 3fm raised 12.6 million dollars for clean drinking water and sanitation programmes around the world. Locked in glass houses on major squares in The Hague, Leuven and Geneva, deejays raised the money by auctioning artist memorabilia and having listeners pay to request songs.