UNITED NATIONS, Jul 12 (IPS) - The United Nations is increasingly hiring Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) for its missions across the world, raising concerns over the use of firms known for participation in human rights abuses, as well as an overall lack of accountability structures governing these contractors within the U.N. system.

WASHINGTON, Jul 12 (IPS) - President Barack Obama on Thursday authorised the release of 10 million dollars in emergency funding to help with the refugee crisis stemming from continued violence in northern Mali, in response to warnings that international aid efforts were in danger of drying up in coming months.

WASHINGTON, Jul 12 (IPS) - Following on a May announcement, the U.S. government on Wednesday moved to implement its most significant rollback in longstanding sanctions on Burma, also known as Myanmar.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 12 (IPS) - A host of academic, legal, health, political and social figures are joining together to back a campaign to decriminalise drug use in Brazil, as tens of thousands of consumers uninvolved in the drug trade are currently jailed.

BOGOTÁ, Jul 11 (IPS) - Nobody will ever know if Jhon Jairo Echenique decided to take his own life out of remorse, fear or mental illness. But the suicide followed his arrest for the stabbing and burning with acid of his 19-year-old former girlfriend Angélica Gutiérrez.

WASHINGTON, Jul 11 (IPS) - While Iran’s human rights record has “never been satisfactory”, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution the situation has deteriorated daily, according to Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi.

DOHA, Qatar, Jul 11 (IPS) - The International Olympic Committee has said it is in talks with Saudi Arabia, after Human Rights Watch called for Riyadh to be barred from participating in the London Olympic Games.

MAPUTO, Jul 11 (IPS) - Every Wednesday at 11.00am José Alfredo Cossa unfurls his East German flag and leads a march of around 150 men and women down the main streets of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital. In a struggle for justice that has been going on for more than 20 years this group, known as the “Magermans”, represent the 16,000 to 20,000 Mozambicans who were sent to the former East Germany in the early 1980s to work and serve their country.

KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 11 (IPS) - “No scalpel, no stitch and no rest needed,” guarantees Dr. Ghulam Shabbir Sudhayao, referring to the surgical procedure called vasectomy - the least popular method of birth control around the world, including Pakistan.

BUENOS AIRES, Jul 11 (IPS) - The governments of most of the countries that share the Río de la Plata basin are doing little or nothing to halt the golden mussel invasion, despite the serious damages and losses it is causing.Limnoperna fortunei, an inedible freshwater bivalve mollusk, is native to the rivers and streams of China and Southeast Asia. From Asia, it travels around the world as a “hitchhiker” or “stowaway” on ocean-going cargo vessels. It first appeared in South America in 1991.