The Jerusalem Municipality announced on Monday its plan to construct 13 new Jewish settlement units in the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, which will result in the eviction of several Palestinian families.

Governments cannot celebrate the UN World Habitat Day on 4 October while ignoring one billion people living in slums, Amnesty International said today.

"A couple of weeks ago in New York, governments promised to help 100 million living in slums. The problem is that more than a billion people live in slums. They don't have water, schools, sanitation, or health care," said Widney Brown, Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International.

Last Friday, May 21, 2010, the Moroccan Coalition of Education for All organized its nineteenth, "Lesson for All," in the Secondary School of Sidi Taibi, a small, impoverished village nestled in between the larger and more developed cities of Kenitra and Rabat. With a student body surpassing 2,000 middle school-aged adolescents, and located in a community with a poverty level exceeding the national average, Sidi Taibi's secondary school was an ideal environment for emphasizing the importance of completing studies to the highest level possible.

By Clare Fermont, editor of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa publications

Since my recent return from Yemen after an Amnesty International research visit there - my first - people keep asking me for my impressions of the country.