JAKARTA, Dic 02 (IPS) - To most people, holes in the ozone layer or the melting of polar ice caps can sound like distant catastrophes. "But let's talk about concrete examples," says an Indonesian director whose documentary film captures the lives of local farmers affected by a dramatically changing environment.

JERUSALEM, Dic 02 (IPS) - After the cancellation of an international conference to create a nuclear-free Middle East, leading experts have warned that an important opportunity to create stability in the region has been squandered.

UNITED NATIONS, Dic 02 (IPS) - When Shorai Chitongo founded Ray of Hope, a support group for female survivors of domestic violence in 2005, she discovered that three-quarters of the survivors in the group were HIV-positive.

HYDERABAD, India, Dic 01 (IPS) - Thirty-year old Swapna Raj of Hyderabad is a woman in a hurry: in time for the International AIDS day Swapna, a HIV positive person on anti-retroviral therapy (ART), has received a contract from the state government to deliver 5,000 red ribbons.

UNITED NATIONS, Dic 01 (IPS) - As the international community comes together on Dec. 1 to celebrate World AIDS Day, a new report from UNAIDS reveals that while significant progress has been made in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS, stigmatisation, violence and discrimination against members of the gay community continue relentlessly.

UNITED NATIONS, Dic 01 (IPS) - On World AIDS Day, the fact that the number of children newly infected with HIV continues to decline is welcome news to UNITAID, the International Drug Purchase Facility hosted by the World Health Organisation.  But UNITAID is also well aware of how much more remains to be done for  children already living with the disease.

GOMA, DR Congo, Dic 01 (IPS) - Lined up along a dirt path that meanders its way up into the lush war-torn mountains surrounding the small town of Sake, in eastern Congo, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, hundreds of young rebel soldiers sat on the road banks in the baking sun.

COLOMBO, Dic 01 (IPS) - Somali pirates on the southwest Indian Ocean have become one of the biggest security risks for commercial maritime shipping over the last several years. But even as piracy gave rise to international furore, an unlikely benefactor emerged: bluefin tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean.

HYDERABAD, India, Dic 01 (IPS) - Thirty-year old Swapna Raj of Hyderabad is a woman in a hurry: in time for the International AIDS day Swapna, a HIV positive person on anti-retroviral therapy (ART), has received a contract from the state government to deliver 5,000 red ribbons.

ABIDJAN, Dic 01 (IPS) - When Emmanuel Kokou, a 28-year-old sex worker, moved from his native Togo to Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire in 2010, he knew there was a good chance that he had previously been exposed to HIV. But he had no intention of getting tested.