BERLIN, Dic 12 (IPS) - When the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII), an alliance of 21 major European corporations, first unveiled plans to install a network of solar thermal, photovoltaic, and wind plants across the North African Maghreb region to generate electricity, the project was greeted as a ‘green utopia'.

LIMA, Dic 12 (IPS) - At the end of every month, with the skill of an environmental engineer, Wilson Sandi prepares a work plan that will be used by Achuar indigenous people, like him, to document the scars left by 40 years of oil drilling in the Peruvian Amazon region of Loreto.

LONDON, Dic 12 (IPS) - Twenty-five years ago, on Dec. 8, presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. This historic agreement eliminated a modern class of land-based "theatre" weapons - the SS20s, cruise and Pershing missiles - that had been brought into Europe in the early 1980s.

JUBA, Dic 12 (IPS) - South Sudan may have received slightly more than 10 billion dollars in oil revenue from 2005 to January 2012, when oil production shut down, according to both government officials and the World Bank.

UNITED NATIONS, Dic 12 (IPS) - Today, approximately 125 countries have laws that penalise domestic violence - a great advance from a decade ago. Yet 603 million women around the world still live in countries where domestic violence is not a crime, and up to seven in ten women are targeted for physical or sexual violence, or both.

WASHINGTON, Dic 11 (IPS) - President Barack Obama's top diplomat on African affairs on Tuesday defended the U.S. administration's response to the continued crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in the face of stepped up criticism from both civil society and U.S. lawmakers.

TUNIS, Dic 11 (IPS) - Following in the wake of the wave of revolutions dubbed the ‘Arab Spring', which originated here nearly two years ago, North Africa is gearing up to host the World Social Forum (WSF) for the first time.

MÁLAGA, Spain, Dic 11 (IPS) - Daniel introduces himself as a "gypsy and guitarist," Francisco José wants to become a doctor, Yomara timidly says she likes to cook, and María has no idea what she wants to study.

KABUL, Dic 11 (IPS) - New textbooks, printed as part of an ambitious multi-million dollar exercise to reform the curriculum in Afghan public schools, have been found to contain glaring mistakes, adding yet another burden on a cash- and resource-strapped sector of this war-torn country.

HAWAII, U.S., Dic 11 (IPS) - As the Iranian leadership prepares to engage in negotiations with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) over the fate of its nuclear programme, the conversation inside Iran has moved beyond the nuclear issue, and now includes a debate about the utility of engaging in direct talks - even relations - with the United States.