, Jul 17 (IPS) - UNITED NATIONS July 16 2012 (IPS) – “Transnational Organized Crime: Let's put them out of business,” is the new campaign by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) aimed at raising global awareness of the size and cost of this illicit network.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 17 (IPS) - Efforts to ensure the UN's continued relevance in global development took centre stage on Monday, as executive heads of UN funds and programmes, including UNDP, UNICEF, UN-Women, WFP, UNOPS, UNFPA and ESCAP assembled in the ECOSOC Chamber to reviewed successes and challenges in integrating development missions across a plethora of UN agencies.  

PORT MORESBY, Jul 17 (IPS) - In an informal settlement of 10,000 people on the outskirts of Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, Tembari Children’s Care – a new grassroots initiative – is providing protection, food and education to orphans and abandoned children who would otherwise join the high numbers of child labourers in this Melanesian country.

COLOMBO, Jul 17 (IPS) - A bloody civil war was reaching its climax but this Tamil family, who had already experienced the conflict intimately, had one last decision to make that would prove to be the hardest one of all.

WASHINGTON, Jul 17 (IPS) - Human rights groups, press watchdogs, and even the U.S. government have strongly denounced recent prison sentences meted out against journalists and opposition activists accused of violating Ethiopia's anti-terrorism laws.

WASHINGTON, Jul 16 (IPS) - Ahead of an Aug. 2 deadline, the leaders of Sudan and South Sudan over the weekend engaged in their first direct talks since hostilities spiked in late April.

ITHACA, New York, Jul 16 (IPS) - Ecovillage at Ithaca (EVI), located in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, is an intentional community of 160 people striving for greater sustainability, a better quality of life, and perhaps even a new model for urban planners the world over.

DOHA, Qatar, Jul 16 (IPS) - Russia has said it would block moves at the U.N. Security Council to extend a U.N. monitoring mission in Syria if Western powers did not stop resorting to "blackmail" by threatening sanctions against Damascus.

PORT MORESBY, Jul 16 (IPS) - Coastal fisheries in Papua New Guinea, used primarily by local subsistence fisher folk, will face increasing pressure from climate change, compounding the twin problems of population growth and overfishing.

COLOMBO, Jul 16 (IPS) - Sri Lanka has long enjoyed a low 0.1 percent HIV prevalence but, as the number of fresh infections rises steadily, experts are calling for a change in the country's archaic laws that make sex work illegal and criminalises homosexual activity.