ROSEAU, Dominica, Dic 18 (IPS) - Eighty-year-old Rupert Lawrence has been living in the Dominica capital, Roseau, for nearly 60 years. Like visitors to the island, he too is fascinated by the fact that the town square has a river running right through its centre.

WASHINGTON, Dic 18 (IPS) - The developing world lost nearly one trillion dollars in 2010 as a result of corruption, tax evasion, and other financial crimes not involving cash transactions, according to a new report released here Monday by Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

HAVANA, Dic 18 (IPS) - "Child abuse merits a different, in-depth approach. The objective of this film is to make the problem visible and promote debate and reflection," says Eric Corvalán, director of a documentary that required "breaking through walls."

WASHINGTON, Dic 17 (IPS) - Although the United States and Russia have massively reduced their collective number of nuclear weapons since the heyday of the Cold War, the rate of that reduction is slowing, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) warned Monday.

SYDNEY, Dic 17 (IPS) - The world's first deep sea mineral (DSM) mining venture in the Bismarck Sea off the northern coast of Papua New Guinea in the southwest Pacific has come to a halt after two years of development.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Dic 17 (IPS) - As the world's most tourism-dependent region, with the sector accounting for one in every eight jobs, the Caribbean has much to fear from climate change.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Dic 17 (IPS) - The most important number in history is now the annual measure of carbon emissions. That number reveals humanity's steady billion-tonne by billion-tonne march to the edge of the carbon cliff, beyond which scientists warn lies a fateful fall to catastrophic climate change.

GUATEMALA CITY, Dic 17 (IPS) - "Many tourists come to this area for bird watching, but the terrible deforestation is leading to the disappearance of so much of our flora and fauna. The cleared land is used for cattle ranching," said Haroldo Figueroa, who works as a guide in nature reserves along Guatemala's Caribbean coast.

GAZA CITY, Dic 17 (IPS) - Shortly after Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement on Nov. 21, the Israeli navy abducted 30 Palestinian fishers from Gaza's waters, destroyed and sank a Palestinian fishing vessel, and confiscated nine fishing boats in the space of four days.

GENEVA, Dic 17 (IPS) - The global economy weakened significantly towards the end of 2011 and further downward pressure emerged in the course of 2012. The growth rate of global output, which had already decelerated from 4.1 percent in 2010 to 2.7 percent in 2011, is expected to slow down even more in 2012 to around 2.3 per cent. Developed economies as a whole are likely to grow by only slightly more than one per cent in 2012, owing mainly to the recession currently gripping the European Union (EU).