WASHINGTON, Jan 22 (IPS) - Following surprisingly forceful statements on the threat of global climate change by President Barack Obama during his second inaugural address on Monday, campaigners here are expressing cautious optimism that a second Obama administration will be able to see through some of the substantive actions on carbon reduction that largely eluded the president's first term.

MEXICO CITY, Jan 22 (IPS) - "We are completely 'clueless' when it comes to China." This statement by Enrique Dussel, director of the Centre for China-Mexico Studies of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, perfectly describes the currently stale state of relations between the two countries.

LILONGWE, Jan 22 (IPS) - She has taken a personal pay cut, promised reforms, resumed aid flows from Western donors and put her predecessor's private jet up for sale.

ROSEAU, Jan 22 (IPS) - What a difference a trip makes. Before visiting the French island of Guadeloupe, Alfred Rolle had vocally expressed fears about the possible health effects of a decision to drill geothermal wells in the village of Laduat on the outskirts of Dominica's capital.

RAMALLAH, Jan 22 (IPS) - "Before she was murdered, she wasn't alive. We'll tell her story backwards from her murder to her birth"…so begins a powerful new song by critically acclaimed Palestinian hip-hop band DAM to draw attention to the continuing murder of Palestinian women by male relatives declaring that "family honour" has been damaged by alleged sexual indiscretions.

GENEVA, Jan 21 (IPS) - The international community has adopted a binding treaty for reducing emissions of mercury, a poisonous heavy metal that harms human health and the ecosystems on which life depends.

DAKAR, Jan 21 (IPS) - A 25-year-old mother of five hailing from Senegal's eastern Tambacounda province believes that contraceptives damage the womb and cause health problems in the long term, such as a rise in blood pressure and chronic headaches.

LISBON, Jan 21 (IPS) - Chronic instability, extreme poverty, drug trafficking and corruption are the tragic lot of Guinea-Bissau, which this year commemorates four decades of independence from Portugal.

NEW DELHI, Jan 21 (IPS) - On a chilly Wednesday evening, exactly a month after a young woman was gang-raped and brutalised on a moving bus in New Delhi, hundreds of sombre citizens gathered at a candlelight protest in India's national capital.

BRUSSELS, Jan 20 (IPS) - Despite staggering advances in medical science and technology over the years, women around the world continue to suffer gravely as a result of inadequate access to basic reproductive health services.