NEW YORK, Jul 21 (IPS) - As the 2012 London Olympics gears up to open on Jul. 27, criticism of the longstanding partnership between the Games and sponsor McDonald’s has stolen a small portion of the limelight.

PENANG, Malaysia, Jul 21 (IPS) - Three years ago, Sherly Hue lived the life of a typical career woman in Kuala Lumpur, working as a marketing executive promoting building materials. But one day, she received a phone call from her worried parents that would forever change her life.

KHUMBU, Nepal, Jul 21 (IPS) - Every morning, as Gian Pietro Verza walks up the lateral moraine of the Khumbu Glacier in this Himalayan country’s north-east to take measurements, the wind makes colourful prayer flags flutter noisily. That same wind carries soot particles that are causing the snow on the mountains to melt faster.

WASHINGTON, Jul 20 (IPS) - An NGO here unveiled new satellite evidence on Friday that would seem to suggest the torching of a village in southern Sudan by state soldiers.

BISHKEK, Jul 20 (IPS) - Allegations that a member of Kyrgyzstan's KGB-successor agency organised the brutal rape of his wife have outraged women’s rights activists in Bishkek. But what rights defenders call an ordinary crime is having an extraordinary effect because of the victim’s response: she pressed charges.

MADRID, Jul 20 (IPS) - "This is war. Parliament has got to go! They're trying to make civil servants take the blame for a situation that was caused by the banking sector and which the government has allowed to happen."

NEW YORK, Jul 20 (IPS) - The United States is suffering one of its most severe droughts in decades, leading to both widespread crop failures and increased public concern about the impacts of climate change.

WASHINGTON, Jul 20 (IPS) - U.S. legislators are appealing to the United Nations to take a greater role in addressing Haiti's cholera outbreak, now in its third year and which has has left thousands dead.

BISHKEK, Jul 20 (IPS) - Allegations that a member of Kyrgyzstan’s KGB-successor agency organised the brutal rape of his wife have outraged women’s rights activists in Bishkek. But what rights defenders call an ordinary crime is having an extraordinary effect because of the victim’s response: she pressed charges.

MOGADISHU, Jul 20 (IPS) - One-year-old Miriam Jama is a symbol of life in Somalia after the famine. Born just as the United Nations World Food Programme declared famine in this Horn of Africa nation a year ago on Jul. 20, Miriam has known no other life than the one in the Badbaado refugee camp, situated 10 kilometres outside the country’s capital, Mogadishu.