As President Obama on Wednesday initiates the ninth U.S. attempt in the last 30 years to bring about a final Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, expectations are low and pessimism is high.

The United Nations stands accused of marginalising water and sanitation in its much-touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at improving the lives of billions of people in the developing world.

"I felt scared. When I looked around, all the mothers had finished giving birth, while I was still there. The blood that flowed from me had already dried and caked onto my body," Lisa, a 19-year-old married mother of three, says, recounting her experience in post-abortion care at a public hospital here in the Philippine capital.

The ordeal of a Sri Lankan domestic worker whose Saudi Arabian employer allegedly drove nails and metal wires into her body has sent alarm bells ringing among government officials and activists, but how such abuses can be stopped remain far from clear.

The number of women raped by rebel groups during last month's raid of more than a dozen villages centred around Walikale, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has risen to over 240, U.N. officials told reporters here today.

As a new administration takes over in Bogotá, some groups are hoping for change in the human rights record of Colombia - and that the U.S. will use its clout in the country to ensure that change occurs.

"Xenophobia is part of life. We do not live easy here. We only survive," says Somali shopkeeper, Abdinasir Shaikh Aden, looking tense.

Activists in Latin America have been galvanised by atrocities like the recent massacre of 72 migrants near the U.S. border to step up their efforts on behalf of migrant rights.

Aid groups and U.N. agencies are raising the alarm over the vulnerability of pregnant women and babies in flood ravaged Pakistan.

Good news has become harder to come by these days in Afghanistan, especially as the war-ravaged country gears up for the parliamentary election scheduled on Sep. 18.

Franklin Brito, who held several long hunger strikes since 2004 to defend ownership of his farm, became the first Venezuelan to fast to the death.

Among its unstable and conflict-ridden neighbours, Rwanda stands out. It has been pegged as a model of development and one of Africa's success stories: Since the 1990's, when a civil war ravaged the country, average incomes have doubled, its people have become healthier and less hungry and it has the highest proportion of women parliamentarians worldwide. Yet, maintaining this stability is a government accused of muzzling its opponents and committing human rights abuses.

Two of the nation's most influential human rights organisations have filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone.

With its thick forest cover and abundant wildlife, the Dawna mountain range in south-eastern Burma is coming in the way of a flagship highway project being pushed by one of Asia's premier financiers of roads.

Thousands of Israelis have protested in a central park here demanding that their government revoke its decision to deport 400 children of migrant workers.

An Egyptian military court handed down sentences Monday in the trial of eight civilian factory workers who led a protest against deteriorating safety conditions in an army-owned factory. Rights groups say the trial should never have taken place.

Rasik Rasheed's (not his real name) hefty Internet bills hardly bother his family. Cooped up at home due to curfews and strikes here for nearly three months now, youngsters like him have been busy not just with their studies but with waging what they call the Kashmir struggle on the Internet.

Since their first child was born 16 years ago, Hiroyuki Ozaki has taken care of the household, relinquishing his traditional role as the main breadwinner while his wife held on to her career in the travel industry.

While efforts get underway to try to rescue the 33 miners who are trapped 700 metres underground in a mine in northern Chile, trade unions are calling on the country's political leaders to tackle the underlying problems of worker safety.

The bitter controversy over the building of a Muslim community centre and mosque near the site of the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001, is sparking new fears of government snooping on Islamic holy places - which it now claims it can do without a warrant.