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Sunday, November 22, 2009 03:12 GMT

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PARAGUAY: Indigenous Women Leaders Buck Discrimination
By Natalia Ruiz Díaz
ASUNCION - More and more indigenous women in Paraguay are overcoming sexist resistance in their communities and emerging as leaders within and outside of their villages, fighting for the rights of their people and against discrimination.
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FRANCE: Top Designers Make Dolls to Fund Darfur Vaccinations
By Alecia D. McKenzie
PARIS - Designer rag dolls, the concept couldn’t sound more frivolous. But dolls made by top fashion designers such as Armani and Prada are helping to fund a vaccination programme in war-torn Darfur.
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RIGHTS-UGANDA: "You Cannot Tell Me You Will Kill Me Because I’m Gay"
By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA - The Ugandan government will put to death gay citizens repeatedly caught having sex and throw into jail those who touch each other in a "gay" way, if a new proposed Bill becomes law.
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AFRICA: We Are the Government
By Jessie Boylan
LAGO DISTRICT, Mozambique - As if they were going to the races, Emma Musako and Monica Mhango showed up in their finest outfits to attend a meeting on the health, social and environmental impacts of uranium mining. They came because they, like the other attendees, no longer want to remain uninformed citizens.
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DEVELOPMENT: "Africans Should Become Their Own Philanthropists"
By Christi van der Westhuizen
CAPE TOWN - Africans "should dare to imagine an African world not defined by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund but one that comes out of Africa". This is necessary for Africans to grow out of dependence and become the agents of their own development.
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Q&A: Put the New Women's Agency in Africa
Suzanne Hoeksema interviews NAISOLA LIKIMANI, advocacy officer of FEMNET*
UNITED NATIONS - On Sep. 14, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted a resolution that gave the green light to the creation of a new U.N. agency for women.
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RIGHTS-MEXICO: Military Abuses Brought to Inter-American Commission
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY - A case of rights abuses allegedly committed by the Mexican armed forces is coming up for a hearing at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), where it joins a long list of accusations against the army in this Latin American country.
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VENEZUELA: Homophobia Stalks the Streets - in Uniform
By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS - One Friday at around midnight, on Villaflor Street, a favourite spot for gays and lesbians in the Venezuelan capital, Yonatan Matheus and Omar Marques noticed two Caracas police patrol vans carrying about 20 detainees, most of them very young.
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PERU: Cuzco Women Stand Up to Violence
By Milagros Salazar
CUZCO, Peru - For tourists and other visitors, Cuzco has a special fascination as the ancient capital of the Inca empire. But social scientists know it as one of the areas in the world with the highest rates of violence against women.
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GUATEMALA: Controversy Dogs New Highway
By Danilo Valladares
GUATEMALA CITY - Construction is expected to begin soon on a new highway across north-central Guatemala, the largest infrastructure project tackled so far by the government of Álvaro Colom.
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LABOUR: Sorting Garbage - Green and Dignified Work
By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO - More than 1,500 representatives of waste recyclers from 13 countries, and thousands of other visitors, including the host country Brazil's left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, met last week in São Paulo, demonstrating that they are no longer pariahs in our throw-away society.
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ARGENTINA: 'Drugs Are Killing the Youngsters We're Feeding'
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES - "You often ask yourself why feed them if some wretch is just going to come along and sell them that rubbish," says Isabel Ruiz, who runs the Las Brujas soup kitchen in Moreno, a poor neighbourhood on the west side of the Argentine capital.
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CHILE: Teen Pregnancy, a Problem That Won’t Go Away
By Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO - Chile currently stands out for its spectacular progress in a number of health indicators, including maternal and child mortality and chronic malnutrition. But these successes obscure an acute social problem that refuses to yield: the steady rise in the number of teenage mothers.
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GUATEMALA: Despite Flaws, Judge Selection Process Improved, Say NGOs
By Danilo Valladares
GUATEMALA CITY - A new process aimed at making the selection of judges more transparent in Guatemala failed to block the appointment of several candidates who were questioned by civil society and a U.N.-sponsored commission set up to strengthen and purge the country's justice system.
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MIDEAST: Harvesting in Death Zone, With a Song
By Eva Bartlett
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza - On a quiet October morning, Fida Zaneen, 19, sings a traditional love song as she pulls olives from trees in Beit Hanoun's border region during the annual olive harvest.
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MEXICO: Int'l Tribunal 'Scandalised' by Denials of Workers' Rights
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY - On the day his trade union section held elections for officials, "our offices were occupied, damaged and ransacked" by thugs from the executive committee of the National Teachers Union (SNTE), said Mexican teacher Gerardo Cruz, a leader in the CNTE, a dissident caucus seeking reform within the union.
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NGOs participation
social movements trade unions grassroots advocacy charity faith-based MOBILISATION groups COLLECTIVE ACTION social capital democratic expression dissent INNOVATION

Q&A: ‘Creating Artificial Glaciers Is Simple, Easy and Replicable’

INDIA: ‘Glacier Man’ Vows to Build More Artificial Glaciers

US-INDIA: State Visit by Singh Could Smooth Bumpy Relations

PERU: Fighting Hunger with Native Crops

RIGHTS-CHAGOS: 'My Navel is Buried There'

GENDER-AFRICA: Some Progress Amidst Continuing Challenges

AFGHANISTAN: Insurgents Infiltrate Security Forces

LEBANON: Migrant Women Dying on the Job

POLITICS: U.N. in Final Push for 2015 Development Goals

CLIMATE CHANGE: Health at Risk

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CIVIL SOCIETY UNDER THREAT IN RUSSIA
By Kumi Naidoo and Tanzilya Salimdjanova
With Russia's presidential elections -- notoriously a time of clampdown on dissent -- looming, it is important to ask whether non-governmental organisations there will be able to freely go about their legitimate activities, whether providing services, election monitoring, or holding the government to account, ask Kumi Naidoo, secretary general of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen participation, and Tanzilya Salimdjanova, associate at CIVICUS - Civil Society Watch programme.

"THE WORLD COULD BE VERY DIFFERENT FROM HOW IT IS TODAY"
By Candido Grzybowski
"The World Social Forum didn't produce the progressive wave in Latin America by itself; nevertheless, it would be difficult to imagine it without the presence of the WSF", says Cândido Grzybowski, director of Ibase (Brazil) and member of the WSF International Committee, in this interview with IPS's Alejandro Kirk.

CIVIL SOCIETY UNDER ATTACK
By Kumi Naidoo
In the last 12 months we have seen civil society organisations challenged by political threats to civil society's right to exist, by the need to improve its internal governance, and by the threats that face humankind, from climate change crisis to poverty and inequality, writes Kumi Naidoo, secretary general of CIVICUS: A World Alliance for Citizen Participation.

World Social Forum

Int'l NGO Accountability Charter

Choike.org - Portal on Southern Civil Societies

CIVICUS - World Alliance for Citizen Participation

CONGO - Conf. of NGOs at UN

Ubuntu - World Forum of Civil Society Networks

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