The loss of marine biodiversity is hurtling forward at an unprecedented rate. At present, the FAO calculates that nearly 80 percent of the world’s fishery resources are fully exploited, overexploited or depleted. Furthermore, marine scientists have suggested that if the current pace of exploitation continues, all fish stocks will have collapsed or disappeared by 2048.

For the last 17 years, Keshari Maharjan has been going door to door in the outskirts of the Nepali capital to tell people about the services available at health centres in their communities, as well as about how to prevent certain diseases.

Controversy has flared up in Venezuela over planned reforms to the law on online media, especially because restrictions that already apply to the content of radio and television broadcasts would be extended to the internet. Portals and networks that transmit messages deemed to be illegal may face heavy fines, or even be shut down.

The U.S. took a major step toward overhauling the way it engages in diplomacy and development work Wednesday.

Amid putting on a two-and-a-half day conference focused on escalating measures against Iran, a neoconservative think-tank held a fundraiser at the residence of Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., according to an IPS investigation.

'It sounds nice, but it’ll be tough to implement'; 'the most important thing is to translate into reality': These statements by rural women leaders in Colombia sum up the reaction of activists to the government’s decision to revive and refinance a special fund for projects in the countryside led by women.

At the start of this month, the U.S. Senate unanimously adopted the 'International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act'. Women's rights groups are now urging the Congress's lower chamber to pass it before adjourning at the end of the year.

After exhausting the legal appeals process in the United States, family members and human rights groups in Cuba are calling for a solidarity campaign to convince President Barack Obama to pardon the five Cuban agents who have spent the last 12 years in U.S. prisons.

Bulawayo, 16 Dec (IPS) -- Unskilled female workers employed in Zimbabwe’s struggling textile, security and other industries say they are increasingly finding themselves at the front of the redundancy line in cases that the affected women say reek of gender discrimination.

In one of the most environmentally damaged areas of Brazil's Mata Atlântica forest, work is under way to reforest a watershed that supplies Rio de Janeiro, while also establishing a 'reforestation' market that stimulates local job creation and local consumption.