UNITED NATIONS, Sep 03 (IPS) - When Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was South Korea's foreign minister during 2004-2006, his answers to reporters were so predictably evasive the press corps in Seoul affectionately dubbed him "the slippery eel".

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 03 (IPS) - The mystery still surrounding the massive business of stealing and buying babies, practised for decades in Spain by the regime of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), could start to be clarified in courtrooms in Argentina.

NEW YORK, Sep 03 (IPS) - Siddharth Chatterjee has served as the chief diplomat, head of strategic partnerships and international relations at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the world's largest humanitarian network, since June 2011.

FOZ DO IGUAÇU, Brazil, Sep 03 (IPS) - The massive Itaipú hydroelectric dam, shared by Brazil and Paraguay, has now become a model for the micro-scale production of an energy source that is not only clean, but also helps to reduce pollution and promote local development: biogas.

COLOMBO, Sep 03 (IPS) - That it would be a visit fraught with diplomatic tension was undoubted. Navanetham ‘Navi' Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was into the third day of her week-long visit from Aug. 25 to Aug. 31 to Sri Lanka when her entourage broke into animated discussion. 

ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan, Sep 03 (IPS) - "Life is almost normal in the centre of Damascus," local resident Hisham says from the predominantly Christian neighbourhood of Bab Touma. "Only the occasional noise of artillery on the outskirts reminds me that we are at war."

LIMA, Sep 02 (IPS) - Venicia Ávalos, a 65-year-old indigenous woman from Peru's highlands region of Ayacucho, looks for her son's name among a labyrinth formed by thousands of small grey stones.

MEXICO CITY, Sep 02 (IPS) - "No one can stop me from working for migrants' rights, because no one is above my own conscience," said Mexican Catholic priest Alejandro Solalinde.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 02 (IPS) - When the General Assembly declared 2013 the International Year of Water Cooperation (IYWC) three years ago, the U.N.'s highest policy-making body was conscious of the perennial conflicts triggered by competition over one of the world's most critical finite resources.