Create your own free news widgets.

A 250-mile long fence will soon enclose one of Africa's most rugged national parks, benefiting wildlife and also people living in povertyIt is 20 years since a small group of Kenyan conservationists set out to protect the few remaining black rhino living in the Aberdare mountains national park. Their plan was simple: to raise enough cash to erect a stretch of fence to keep the beasts inside the park and away from poachers and from people's gardens. The government paid little attention, but the local communities living on the slopes of the heavily wooded hillsides were delighted because rhino and elephants kept destroying their crops.In a few months' time, the labours of the group, Rhino Ark, will be largely over. The seven-strand, eight-foot high electric fence will be finished, but it is nothing like what was envisaged in 1989. Instead of being just a few kilometres long, it encircles the whole Aberdare mountain range, which includes some of Africa's most rugged landscapes and spectac

(New York) - Twenty years after the Chinese army killed untold numbers of unarmed civilians in Beijing and other cities on and around June 3-4, 1989, the Chinese government continues to victimize survivors, victims' families, and others who challenge the official version of events, Human Rights Watch said today. read more

Family members are buried in Gunnell Cemetery, Arbela, Tuscola County, Michigan.

Chinese equal rights activists have asked adoption agencies and the government to relax regulations on adoption and artificial insemination so that gay couples and unmarried women can build families. Although the Civil Code and the Children and Juveniles Welfare Act only stipulate that a court rule on an adoption case based on an evaluation of an adoptive parent's personal character, economic status, family condition and childcare experience in the past, many of the rulings are still made based on marriage status or sexual orientation. Gay couples can't turn to technology for a solution either. Unfortunately, the Artificial Reproduction Act says that only a married man and woman are qualified to use artificial insemination. READ MORE

Sanandaj, May 12, IRNA -- Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei received families of martyrs and war veterans in the province of Kurdistan on Tuesday afternoon.

Hong Kong - A will leaving the fortune of Asia's richest woman Nina Wang to a feng shui master was not genuine but a document used in a ritual to prevent her from dying of cancer, a Hong Kong court heard Tuesday. A lawyer for the family of the former...

National Organization for Marriage -Big $ to Bash Gays & Gay Marriage, but Not a Dime to Defend Marriage & Fathers' Rights I've often criticized the Christian Right's policies on marriage. My complaints are: 1) They ignore the true threat to marriage and parents' rights--the family law system. 2) They do nothing to defend fathers' rights, which are particularly vulnerable under the current system. 3) They bash gays, who haven't done anything to anybody and deserve to be left in peace. 4) They waste an appalling amount of time and effort on non-issues like gay marriage while millions of children have been needlessly separated from the fathers they love and need.

It didn't take me long to work out whom O2 is targeting with the Joggler. They are targeting me. Me and my partner, in fact. We so squarely constitute the target market for this new "electronic family organiser" that we might as well have been Sellotaped to a whiteboard at the front of the planning room while they sat round discussing the product. "So these are the sort of people we're aiming at," the person leading the development meeting would have said, jabbing at us with a light-stick. "You're looking here at a couple with children. In this case, three children." (Cue intakes of breath from the others at the table, and various muttered remarks, including "outnumbered" and "schoolboy error".) "At the moment, these people use a diary." (A patronising titter.) "It's a desk diary and appears to be some sort of corporate freebie that came through the post." (Open sniggering.) "And, of course, it's perfectly functional as a basic planning device. But do they know where it is