Slums

Hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers raided Haiti's largest and most violent slum, seizing a portion of it in a six-hour gun battle that killed a suspected gang member. Four others were wounded, along with two soldiers, officials said. More than 700 heavily armed troops from seven countries participated in the raid on Port-au-Prince's Cite Soleil slum, entering in armored vehicles and on foot as helicopters circled above.

The words "guilty pleasure" surely were invented for circumstances such as these: taking a shower at the colonial-era Lagos Lawn Tennis Club after a sweaty afternoon in Ajegunle, aka the Jungle, Africa's biggest slum. An unhappy spit of land shared by as many as 5 million people, Ajegunle is a few miles, and a world away, from the club. There, children make their way home from school along rutted dirt roads lined with waist-high mounds of peanut shells, plastic bags and rotting food.

Gazing from a breeze-swept second-floor terrace, Luciana Bezerra takes in the postcard-perfect imagery of this most photogenic of cities: the golden expanse of Ipanema beach, the dreamy islands bobbing in the Atlantic and the hill where the giant Christ the Redeemer statue keeps watch over wobbly humanity.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge sentenced the owners of the Morrison Hotel to five years probation Wednesday after they were convicted of 21 counts involving slum conditions at the property. The judge ordered Sauli and Henry Danpour to control a vermin infestation in the four-story, residential hotel or face 120 days in jail.

A decade ago, the Bosa slum was the black hole of Bogota. Its darkest corner was Laurel Park, a grassless, trash-strewn lot with open sewage and gun-toting gangs bent on muggings and murder. Today, Bosa has paved streets, new schools, health clinics and cafeterias, and links to a new mass transit system. Laurel Park has been rechristened Park of the Arts and is alive with children at play and free theater, fashion shows and concerts.

First, the landlord yanked the pipes out of their sinks. The Jimenez sisters put buckets underneath to catch the water before it streamed onto the floor. Next, he stripped the facade from the outside of the building, exposing rotting boards and some gaping holes. He removed some windows, allowing cold air and sometimes pigeons into their rooms. Their phone lines were cut, and gas and water service sputtered off and on.

Unidentified gunmen attacked U.N. peacekeepers near a restive slum in Haiti's capital, killing two Jordanian members of the force, officials said Saturday. The attack came late Friday as peacekeepers headed back to base near the Cite Soleil neighborhood, where well-armed gangs blamed for kidnappings are based, a U.N. police spokesman said. One soldier died en route to a hospital, the other while being treated. U.N. officials said the slayings appeared premeditated. The U.N.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office Wednesday filed 34 criminal charges against a landlord who allegedly removed pipes, tore out windows and cut off power to his building south of downtown, putting his tenants' health and safety at risk.

Sister Emmanuelle, 99, a nun who lived for years among scavengers in Cairo's slums and who won wide acclaim for defending the rights of the poor and marginalized, died Monday in her sleep at a retirement home in Callian, a town in southeastern France. Sister Emmanuelle spent more than two decades working with Cairo's zabbaleen, or garbage collectors, who eke out a living through scavenging. She helped create a network of clinics, schools and gardens to serve the children of the slums, and an association she founded now operates in eight countries, including Lebanon in the Middle East and Burkina Faso in West Africa.

A government report seeks the indictment of 226 people, including politicians and top police officers, for involvement in violent militias that control swaths of Rio de Janeiro's slums. The report by a commission of Rio's state legislature says militias made up largely of corrupt police and firefighters began by offering residents protection from drug gangs but now run illegal businesses. They have become part of Rio's violence problem, adopting tactics of intimidation and extortion similar to those used by gangs, it says.