News stories by Kanya D'Almeida, page 10

While scores of international observers wait on tenterhooks for the first election in Burma in two decades - and one of only three multiparty elections in 60 years — a report by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights there suggests that the world need not wait for Nov. 7 to judge the outcome.

Ten years after the Security Council issued its landmark resolution 1325, designed to address the 'disproportionate and unique impact of war on women', U.N. officials and international human rights advocates say it is high time the principles it espouses move from paper to reality.

Alma Guillermoprieto was one of only two journalists to investigate rumours of the notorious massacre in El Mozote, El Salvador in December 1981. Because the slaughter of 1,000 unarmed civilians was perpetrated by the U.S.-backed Salvadorian Army, the Ronald Reagan administration attempted to discredit her work.

Nearly than two years after the Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity was proposed to the United Nations General Assembly, many civil society groups say that little has been done to safeguard the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people around the world.

While questions of funding and accountability shadow the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), some actors have taken matters into their own hands. On Wednesday, the Glasgow-based International Network for Street Papers (INSP) announced that it has helped 200,000 people to get off the streets and onto a path of opportunity.