MOSCOW, Nov 04 (IPS) - Healthcare systems in Eastern Europe and Central Asia remain woefully unable to cope with HIV/AIDS as the region's raging epidemic – the fastest growing in the world – takes on a new dimension, a senior UN official has told IPS.

QAMISHLI, Syria, Nov 04 (IPS) - "I got married when I was 14 and I already had four children at 20," recalls Nafia Brahim. In her fifties now, she is working hard so that no other woman loses control of her life.

BATTIR, Occupied West Bank, Nov 03 (IPS) - "O green Battir, mother of the air," Mariam Ma'mmar sings in praise of her village. As the hot season draws to a close, the land – her people's strength – dries up. Not here in her Battir, where a peaceful form of resistance against the Israeli occupation is taking root.

PESHAWAR, Nov 02 (IPS) - The drone attack that killed Tehreek Taliban Pakistan chief Hakimullah Mahsud this week seems also to have killed hopes that drone attacks will end.

, Nov 02 (IPS) - Ten and a half years after invading U.S. troops ousted President Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime, Iraq re-emerged here this week, if only briefly, as a major foreign policy agenda item.

WASHINGTON, Nov 01 (IPS) - While U.S. and Iranian negotiators prepare for another round of nuclear talks in Geneva next month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been silent about another matter that could be even more indicative of his willingness to take on hardline conservatives.

NAKHON PATHOM, Thailand, Nov 01 (IPS) - Thai women were among the first women in Asia granted voting rights, in 1932. However, when it comes to religion, women in Thailand continue to struggle for equality and social acceptance.

WASHINGTON, Nov 01 (IPS) - U.S. state legislators and corporate lobbies have engaged in an unprecedented attack on minimum wages that has lowered U.S. labour standards, according to new research released Thursday.

MUTOKO, Zimbabwe, Nov 01 (IPS) - Ranganai Zimbeva, from the rural village of Mutoko, which lies about 200 km northeast of Zimbabwe's capital Harare, plugs his ears with his fingers and shakes his head as he watches miners close to his village blast the hard rock to extract the black granite within.

WASHINGTON, Nov 01 (IPS) - Civil society groups from throughout Latin America are urging "home countries" to take greater responsibility for the actions of their companies abroad, particularly those in the extractives industry.