CUBA: A Good Old Age in Old Havana

In the centre of Old Havana, historic buildings are being restored without neglecting the occupants who are their heart and soul. The priority is to care for elderly residents with programmes that could become a model for the rest of Cuba, whose population is ageing fast.

CENTRAL AMERICA: Women Make Headway in Politics – and Want More

The victory of Laura Chinchilla in Costa Rica's presidential elections, and the growing participation of women in Central American parliaments, point to their progress in the region's spheres of political power. But they still have a long way to go, experts say.

RIGHTS: Arab Women Caught Between Extremes

The status of women in a predominantly male-chauvinistic Arab world continues to fluctuate from one extreme to another.

RIGHTS: U.N. Women’s Agency Remains Politically Paralysed

A longstanding proposal for the creation of a special U.N. agency for women - officially called a "gender entity" - is apparently moving at the sluggish pace of a paralytic snail.

DR CONGO: Will Poultry Project Live up to Expectations?

For some seven million Congolese living in Kinshasa the only meat and poultry they could buy to eat since the 1980s was frozen imports from Western countries, distributed locally by a few local businessmen.

MIDEAST: Gap Lingers Between Women’s Political and Legal Rights

Last year, Kuwaitis elected their first female members of Parliament. Yet in countries like Yemen, child marriage remains common and personal status laws still discriminate against women in matters concerning marriage, divorce and child custody.

GUATEMALA: Off Track for Millennium Development Goals

Guatemala knows that when it comes time to demonstrate compliance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of global anti-poverty and development target to be met by 2015, it will make a poor showing.

CHILE: Cost of Rebuilding Still Unclear

Chile has begun to think about the costs and challenges of rebuilding a large part of the areas hit by the Feb. 27 earthquake and tsunami, while rescue and aid operations continue.

RIGHTS-US: “He” the People?

Despite having equality on paper, women continue to be shut out of most leadership positions in the United States, and some experts say that the persistence of language in which male is the default gender is an overlooked factor.

PERU: Relocating Entire Villages for Mines, Dams

Hundreds of Peruvian communities were displaced as they fled the 1980-2000 civil war. Today the government is pushing for urgent passage of a law that would facilitate the relocation of entire villages or neighbourhoods in mineral or energy-rich areas.

HEALTH: Neoliberalism not Liberal Enough for AIDS Investments

Neoliberal economic ideas have grown increasingly dominant over the last 30 years. During that same time, the spread of HIV/AIDS has reached an epidemic crescendo.

CHILE: First Woman President Scores Points on Gender Front

When Chile elected Michelle Bachelet as its first woman president in 2005, thousands of women celebrated the historic victory as their own personal triumph, proudly marching in the streets wearing mock presidential sashes. Today, men and women both recognise the concrete and symbolic progress achieved in gender issues under her administration.

BOLIVIA: Cash for Checkups to Slash Maternal Deaths

A social programme in Bolivia that prevents the deaths of two mothers a day from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth is making headway despite administrative difficulties, and has the potential to cut the alarmingly high maternal mortality rate in this country by up to 80 percent in just five years.

RIGHTS: Rise and Fall of Gender Empowerment

The 45-member Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), presiding over one of the largest gatherings of women at the United Nations, listened Monday to dozens of speakers spelling out the successes and failures of gender empowerment worldwide.

RIGHTS: Women More Educated, Not More Equal

When it comes to female education rates, progress has been made around the world, and in many countries girls and young women have outnumbered and outperformed boys and men at all levels of schooling for decades. Nevertheless, these advances have yet to translate into greater equity in employment, politics and social relations.

Q&A: “We Can’t Continue to Pay Lip Service to Gender Equality”

During consultations of the 45-member U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) here, one of the lingering issues that is surfacing is the success - or failure - in the implementation of the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action on gender empowerment.

DEATH PENALTY: Post-Genocide Countries Ban Executions to ‘End Revenge’

More than 1,000 activists and experts attending this week's Fourth World Congress Against the Death Penalty in this Swiss city are building a network of cooperation to support local organisations campaigning for human rights in countries that retain capital punishment.

RIGHTS: Women Still Battling Gender Bigotry Worldwide

Nearly 62 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaimed "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights," a few of the world's discriminatory laws against women are being progressively repealed in Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America.

HEALTH: Addressing Preterm Births Crucial to Anti-Poverty Goals

Reducing the annual 13 million preterm births and 3.2 million stillbirths should be a global public health priority, says a report released Monday which asserts that significant reductions in these numbers could be achieved by improving access to low-cost interventions in both low and high-income countries.

MALAWI: Catapults Against Cholera

By this time last year, Mkanda had recorded 14 cholera cases as rainy season descended on central Malawi. This year, there has not been a single report of cholera.

EAST AFRICA: Improving Local Access to Family Planning

A severe shortage of highly-trained medical personnel is one of the many challenges to providing health care at a local level across Africa. Task shifting - permitting less-specialised people to carry out certain functions - is one proposal to over come this, but it is meeting resistance.