Ismail Conteh has been teaching for the past year-and-a-half at a primary school in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown — without receiving a single cent. He is one of hundreds of teachers recruited by schools to match the ever-growing number of pupils.

Less than a hundred days to go, and the world looks on, often more with scepticism than anticipation.

Japanese parliamentarians and activists pin high hopes on the hotly debated and much anticipated U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to which the Barack Obama administration is reported to be giving finishing touches.

Three years after vehicle-makers succeeded in weakening new European Union (EU) pollution standards for cars, many of the same firms are hoping to frustrate efforts to make vans more fuel-efficient.

Saleha Firdaus, a mother of two teenage children, has been moving to the Bollywood beat at a dance studio for over a year now and 'loves every moment' of this personal time. For her part, 22-year-old Maheen Jafri was a 'bedroom dancer' until she discovered a Bollywood and hip-hop dance studio and 'shed my inhibitions totally.'

It's just before midnight, and the music pulsates through the massive speakers perched under the ceiling, scantily clad girls in their five-inch heels moving closer to the iron poles.

Representatives from seven North African and Sahelian states convened in Algiers on Tuesday to discuss the growing threat of al Qaeda's North African affiliate in the region.

During Sunday's legislative elections in Colombia - in which rightwing President Álvaro Uribe's allies were the big winners - polling stations in one-third of the country's municipalities were at risk of violence, corruption or fraud, according to the ombudsman's office and election observers, who reported vote-buying and pressure on voters.

Despite assurances by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday that the United States and Israel share a 'close, unshakeable bond', the week-old crisis between the two allies continued to percolate here Tuesday.

'At home we have a bar,' says grade seven learner David Bravo* (14). 'When my mother puts on the music I cannot concentrate on (my) schoolwork anymore. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I just sit there and watch the people.'