TOKYO, Nov 29 (IPS) - For years, it was the power chamber at the headquarters of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva - the Director General's Conference Room, more popularly known as the Green Room, where a handful of delegates would gather for important discussions and meetings.

PESHAWAR, Nov 29 (IPS) - A blockade of NATO supplies to Afghanistan by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan's party has ended up hitting Pakistan's legal trade with its neighbour, say local traders and truckers.

KAMPALA, Nov 28 (IPS) - Uganda may have the third-highest fertility rate in the world but where there is life, death is inevitable. And it is a certainty that Regina Mukiibi Mugongo made the most of when she became this East African nation's first ever funeral director almost two decades ago.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 28 (IPS) - The number of femicides – gender-related murders – in Brazil has reached civil war-like proportions. In just 10 years 40,000 women were killed in this country merely for being women, say activists leading the fight against gender violence.

CIÉNAGA DE ZAPATA, Cuba, Nov 28 (IPS) - The 18 communities in Cuba's Ciénaga de Zapata, the largest wetlands in the Caribbean, have long survived on the abundant local hunting and fishing and by producing charcoal. But that is no longer possible, due to climate change.

NEW DELHI, Nov 28 (IPS) - Food security activists who secured a moratorium on introducing genetically modified brinjal (aubergine) into India fear that their efforts are being undermined by the release of GM brinjal in neighbouring Bangladesh.

WASHINGTON, Nov 27 (IPS) - The U.S. government has proposed strengthening an obscure tax-status designation that supporters say could significantly impact upon the massive amounts of anonymous money that have come to define U.S. politics over the past two campaign cycles.

WASHINGTON, Nov 27 (IPS) - Gay and transsexual immigrants who enter the U.S. detention system face high levels of sexual abuse, new research warns, at times leading them to decide to return to their home countries rather than stay to fight a legal battle.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 (IPS) - Saudi Arabia's unyielding opposition to last week's interim nuclear agreement with Iran has triggered speculation about its own projection of military power in the Middle East.

PORT OF SPAIN, Nov 27 (IPS) - Outraged at a court ruling that would potentially render stateless thousands of Dominican people of Haitian descent, the Caribbean Community on Tuesday suspended the Dominican Republic's bid to join the 15-member regional grouping.