RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 22 (IPS) - A Nigerian diviner dances and sings next to a Brazilian priest of the Candomblé religion, brought to this South American country by African slaves, that is now being rescued from oblivion in school texts on national history and culture.

RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank, Nov 22 (IPS) - As people anxiously wait to see if the newly-signed ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas will hold, local and international human rights groups are calling for investigations into Israeli human rights abuses committed during its eight-day assault on the Gaza Strip, including flagrant attacks on journalists.

KARACHI, Nov 22 (IPS) - Medical practitioners at the National Institute of Child Health (NICH), a leading government-run children's hospital in Karachi, hope that this will be the last winter they have to treat a stream of children suffering from pneumonia.

WARANGAL, India, Nov 22 (IPS) - In a country notorious for the inability to deal with the waste it generates, municipal officials in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh are now resorting to making waste management a competitive sport, in their bid to cajole the entire nation to clean up.

GAZA CITY, Nov 22 (IPS) - Fouad Hijazi was watching the 7 pm news with his wife and eight children when a missile fired by an Israeli F-16 hit their house in Jabalyia refugee camp, Gaza's most densely populated area.

ADDIS ABABA, Nov 22 (IPS) - The world received contradictory signals about Ethiopia's human rights record when in the same week it was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council, a major German charity closed its Ethiopian office in protest against a restrictive political environment.

WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (IPS) - President Barack Obama may have lost interest in the Middle East, to paraphrase Soviet leader Leon Trotsky's famous epigram about war, but the Middle East is interested in him.

JERUSALEM, Nov 21 (IPS) - Ending Israel's first military operation since the Arab Spring changed the Middle East depended on both the diplomatic blitz exerted on Israel and Hamas and the extent of the military blows exchanged between them. As for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the ceasefire must live at least until his re-election.

TORONTO, Nov 21 (IPS) - Canada's military buying binge under the current Conservative government has hit a financial brick wall in these austere times, but there is no nostalgic return in sight for Ottawa's once robust participation in United Nations-led peacekeeping missions.

NAIROBI, Nov 21 (IPS) - A new website linking corruption and other scandals to high-ranking Kenyan politicians, created by a team of political provocateurs, has become one of the most-visited web pages in the country.