The melting of glaciers resulting from climate change and the lack of adequate water management policies seem to be the main causes behind the water shortages that are fuelling conflicts in Peru.

The United Nations anti-racism conference will begin next Monday in a climate of uncertainty, despite last-minute diplomatic negotiations that managed to iron out differences that separated at least two blocs: Western and Muslim states.

Cuba, the only country excluded from the Fifth Summit of the Americas opening in Port of Spain on Friday, received strong backing for its demand for unconditional talks with the United States from eight governments of the region gathered in the northeastern Venezuelan city of Cumaná.

U.S. green groups hailed Friday's formal finding by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that carbon dioxide and several other greenhouse gases 'endanger' public health and welfare as a landmark – if long overdue – step toward slowing global warming.

The Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has warned that the current financial crisis is threatening to claim another casualty: international migration.

Government officials, business leaders and non-governmental organisations agreed in Brazil on the need for rich countries and companies to 'pay' the people of the Amazon jungle as 'providers of environmental services' for contributing to the fight against climate change by not deforesting.

Reports vary about how many people actually showed up at Tax Day Tea Party rallies in dozens of cities across the United States on Wednesday, Apr. 15 - the deadline for paying taxes in the U.S.

Lawyers for a Guantanamo detainee who claims he was held and tortured in one of the 'black site' secret prisons run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is demanding that the CIA preserve cells and interrogation paraphernalia there as evidence of mistreatment.

After an initial period of putting policy-makers in place, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is slowly rolling out its strategy for dealing with Iran. But the process is a work in progress, said several experts at a policy conference here, happy to dole out advice for what the administration’s next moves should be.

Human rights advocates were quick to praise President Barack Obama for Thursday's release of the infamous 'torture memos' used by the Bush-era Justice Department to justify cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of war-on-terror prisoners. However, they appear unanimously critical of the president’s decision not to prosecute the Central Intelligence Agency operatives who used these techniques.