TOKYO, Sep 20 (IPS) - Unhappy with her employer of five years, Chikako Harada, 34, quit three months ago and has just started on a new job with a large Internet sales company. 

WASHINGTON, Sep 20 (IPS) - Both the U.S. government and the United Nations warned Wednesday that new fighting in a key rebel-held area of Somalia needed to ensure the safety of civilians, in a battle that could be a critical turning point following the country’s recent surprise election results and decades of lawlessness.

WASHINGTON, Sep 20 (IPS) - With a shortfall of some 400 million dollars this year, the Palestinian Authority (PA) faces a “deepening fiscal crisis", according to new reports released here Wednesday on the eve of a critical donors’ conference by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

NEW YORK, Sep 19 (IPS) - The Global Civil Society Network CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation has a new secretary general - Dhananjayan (Danny) Sriskandarajah, who was appointed Monday by the board of directors following the CIVICUS World Assembly in Montreal.

HAVANA, Sep 19 (IPS) - Mabel Suárez, a 22-year-old Cuban woman, can’t concentrate on enjoying her youth. She helped take care of her great-grandmother for two years, and she knows that, whether she likes it or not, it will fall to her to take care of her grandparents and parents in their old age.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 19 (IPS) - The Brazilian Commission for Combating Religious Intolerance (CCIR) condemned the film “Innocence of Muslims" as “disrespectful” of the prophet Mohammed, and organised a mass protest demanding respect for freedom of religion in this country.

ISTANBUL, Sep 19 (IPS) - Most countries in the world have an emergency telephone number for the police. But in Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, an emergency telephone line has been launched for victims of police violence.

ATHENS, Sep 19 (IPS) - Panahi Gholamhousein (22), an Afghan refugee who spends his days in a room that is barely five square metres with his wife Zarmina (18) and their 19-month-old daughter Zahra, has hardly left his place in downtown Athens since he was beaten up and robbed nearly a month ago.

BRUSSELS, Sep 19 (IPS) - The European Commission has announced it will limit the amount of crop-based biofuels used in transport, but its newly proposed measures are not nearly enough to curb the disastrous impact of the EU's biofuel policy around the world. Its effects will only worsen, activists say.

KAMPALA, Sep 19 (IPS) - Almost a decade since Uganda initiated negotiations with China for the favourable export of coffee beans to the Asian giant, it is struggling to create even trade relations with the world's second-biggest economy. But economic experts predict that the East African nation could close the gap through the promotion of agriculture and the eventual export of oil.