VENEZUELA: A New Life for At-Risk Kids, and Music Too!

On tour in Germany after performing to rave reviews at the BBC Promenade Concerts in London, the members of Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra and its wild-haired conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, have made a remarkable journey from their less than promising social origins.

COLOMBIA: Campaign Seeks to Make Water a Constitutional Right

Sixty environmental, indigenous, labour and social organisations in Colombia are carrying out a campaign for a constitutional amendment that would make access to clean water a fundamental right.

DEVELOPMENT: Farewell to "Flush and Forget"

In urban settings, the one-time use of water to disperse human and industrial wastes is becoming an outmoded practice, made obsolete by new technologies and water shortages.

HEALTH: Doctors from the Developing South Helping the North

There are not enough doctors in Portugal’s public health system, because too many have left to enter the private sector. This has forced socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates’ administration to seek rapid and drastic solutions, one of which is to attract doctors from the developing world.

SOUTH AFRICA: Copper Thieves, an Abattoir and Coal Mining Threaten Lake District

Raw sewage flowing into Lake Chrissie is threatening to turn South Africa’s largest natural freshwater body into a massive cesspool. Environmentalists claim that for seven years, local authorities ignored their pleas to upgrade water treatment facilities; officials only took action, they say, when local revenue was affected by the closure of tourism routes such as biking trails, as a result of pollution.

HEALTH-SRI LANKA: Lessons From Int&#39l AIDS Meet

For Padma, a sociology graduate from a Sri Lankan university, the three-day International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) that ended Thursday was nothing short of an enlightening experience in her life.

ENVIRONMENT-ARGENTINA: Sad Tale of the Tercero River

Argentina's polluted rivers are not limited to Buenos Aires. Wastewater dumping is devastating the second largest river of the central province of Córdoba, the Ctalamochita, or Tercero River.

TRADE-MALAWI: Government Joins Chorus of Concern about EPA

Manufacturers, exporters and even government officials in Malawi are jittery about January 1, 2008. On that day the economic partnership agreements (EPAs), currently being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and six groupings of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, will come into force.

Q&A: “I Have Ideas for Things That Need To Be Done in All Social Sectors”

It's a long way from the north of France to West Africa - and from studying mathematics at the University of Lille to becoming a mayor in central Cameroon. But Marie-Hélène Ngoa has successfully undertaken both these journeys.

HEALTH-SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Fortified Flour – Key Nutrition Strategy

When Indonesian women and children tuck into cups of ‘Indomie’, a popular brand of instant noodles, they are assured a tasty staple healthier than most other brands sold across South-east Asia.

PERU: Anti-Poverty Plan Shrouded In Mystery

Peruvian President Alan García says that one of the pillars of his strategy to radically reduce poverty in his country is a new plan which, although it is fully operational, remains a mystery to the majority of Peruvians.

HEALTH: Sanitation the World&#39s Silent Humanitarian Crisis

The topic of toilets often makes people uncomfortable, says the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, and the subject of human wastes is rarely aired in public.

BRAZIL: Controversial Bill to Sterilise Younger Women

A draft law to reduce the minimum age for women to undergo voluntary sterilisation in Brazil’s public hospitals from 25 to 18 is vigorously opposed by the government.

TRADE-EAST AFRICA: Learning From Past Glories

East African scholars are delving into history for clues on cultivating economic ties and dealing with challenges in a new era of expanding trade with China and India.

HEALTH-BURMA: HIV Rates Falling As Funds Dry Up – Experts

Burma is seen as a reclusive country whose real HIV and AIDS situation is a deep, dark secret. But top Burmese officials, independent experts and AIDS researchers here painted a picture of a country that is making some progress, despite what some called its "unethical" abandonment by international AIDS organisations.

HEALTH-CENTRAL ASIA: Intravenous Drug Use Feeds HIV Pandemic

The steep rise in HIV cases in recent years in Central Asia - at a pace faster than in other regions of the world - has set alarm bells ringing among government and non-government groups in the former Soviet republics.

HEALTH-ASIA: HIV, AIDS Take on A Woman&#39s Face

The feminisation of HIV and AIDS continues in full swing in the Asia-Pacific, reflected in the fact that almost 40 percent of new HIV cases are among women, even if the newest estimates show that there are fewer people than originally estimated to be living with the virus in the region.

KENYA: Legislation to Get More Women in Parliament – the Next Chapter…

Activists in Kenya have resumed efforts to legislate an increase in the number of women occupying seats in the East African country's parliament, this after a constitutional amendment bill that would have created 50 special seats for women was thrown out by the governing body.

ENVIRONMENT-MEXICO: High Voltage Conflict Over Dam

Campesinos in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero have been blocking access to an area where the government wants to build a huge dam and hydroelecric station, since 2003.

HEALTH-ASIA: Hope Sets Tone for AIDS Congress

The 8th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) opened here with a strong message of hope, anchored on the fact that the world's most populous region still has relatively low prevalence rates of HIV despite problems of poverty, discrimination and stigma.

HEALTH-ASIA: When Hearth Is No Longer Her Home

To Princey Mangalika from Sri Lanka, AIDS has come to mean hatred, hunger, humiliation and death.