I tasted freedom for the first time in three years. After being stuck in Gaza since 2007 I travelled to Malaysia for a holiday. It was like visiting another planet. Being treated like a human being and being able to experience what many young people around the world take for granted, was a miracle.

All major European countries plan mass expulsions of Roma or demolitions of Roma settlements. Rights groups warn that these measures entail the criminalisation of an entire ethnic group, and break EU law.

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe ends his second consecutive term Saturday with 75 percent approval ratings and strong international support reflected by his designation this week as vice chair of a United Nations-appointed international panel to investigate Israel's attack on a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza in May.

Civil society organisations in Burma are stepping into the minefield of pre-election activity in the military-ruled country, giving rise to possible shifts in the political landscape there.

Lebanon has a reputation for openness because of the relative freedom enjoyed by women in comparison to other Middle Eastern countries. But many women face rampant discrimination.

Understanding that sex workers have rights too may still be some way off in China, but the government's decision to stop police from parading them in public to humiliate them appears to reflect changing public attitudes toward those in the sex trade.

Abolition movements are gaining momentum in North Africa, but authoritarian regimes appear reluctant to remove capital punishment from the penal code.

Dowa, central Malawi: medical staff struggle to vaccinate frightened children clinging to their parents, as an armed policeman stands guard.

The most determined attempt by the far-right paramilitaries to establish a presence in this town in central Colombia ended in failure.

Jubilant supporters say it is a new dawn for Kenya. Sixty-seven percent of votes cast endorsed a new constitution more than two decades after reform was first raised.

As the U.N. investigates new allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, most troop contributing countries continue to evade accounting for how they handle disciplinary actions.

After being relegated to the shadows for decades by its more powerful neighbours, Laos is finally taking the lead role in a global campaign to ban the use of cluster bombs.

"The first film I make when I go back to my village will be about unequal wages women peasants get compared to their male counterparts," says Haseena Mallah, an unlettered farmhand in her 40s.

Ovidio Perez's brother was planning to return to Guatemala because of a new Arizona law that made it a state crime to be an undocumented immigrant. He returned, but in a coffin.

Precious Nabwire nearly died giving birth to her fourth child. If Kenyan gynaecologists have their way, a drug to control bleeding after childbirth will be licensed, offering greater protection to tens of thousands of women facing similar danger.

"We have to start thinking about a new social contract on a planetary scale, but also within each country," says Argentine activist and scholar Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

There are growing fears that increasing numbers of women candidates and voters may not participate in the 2011 general elections because of an upsurge in election-related violence.

Musician Justin Dillon had been reading about human trafficking before he went on tour to Eastern Europe. In Russia, his young female translator told him about offers she was receiving to move west for jobs that seemed too good to be true - and with no paperwork to back them up.

"People want to get rid of the factory. It has to go. There's already been an accident," a taxi driver said on the drive to the pesticide plant belonging to the Agricultura Nacional company in this southern Mexican city.

With her knees shaking and her heart thudding, Toshiko Hamamako rose to address the audience. But it was more than stage fright.