WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (IPS) - Top diplomats and retired U.S. military officials are urging Western and African governments to step up the global fight against illegal wildlife poaching.

YANGON, Jan 11 (IPS) - As Myanmar nurses a fragile democracy after long years of military rule, a new danger has reared its head. Climate change, say experts, has the potential to spur migration and exacerbate conflict in the country.

WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (IPS) - If people outside the United States are looking for answers why Americans often seem so clueless about the world outside their borders, they could start with what the three major U.S. television networks offered their viewers in the way of news during 2013.

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 10 (IPS) - Record temperatures at the start of the southern hemisphere summer in Argentina have been accompanied by highs on the thermometer of social discontent, as consumption peaks left thousands without electricity and threw into sharp focus the failings of the privatisation of the power industry in the 1990s.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 10 (IPS) - When Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon chairs a U.N. pledging conference next week for urgently needed aid to Syria, he is expected to warn the donor community that the humanitarian crisis in the politically-troubled Arab nation is threatening to reach biblical proportions.

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (IPS) - Criticism in the memoirs of former secretary of defence Robert M. Gates of President Barack Obama’s lack of commitment to the Afghan War strategy of his administration has generated a Washington debate about whether Obama was sufficiently supportive of the war.

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (IPS) - As the fourth anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Haiti approaches on Jan. 12, development analysts are decrying an ongoing lack of transparency in U.S. foreign aid to the country, even as those assistance streams are drying up.

HAVANA, Jan 10 (IPS) - The stench hits as you walk through the door of one of the pleasant houses along the Quibú river in the Cuban capital’s Náutico neighbourhood. “The garbage piles up, it stinks, and there are even rats,” said María Angélica Suárez, a local resident who is tired of living this way.

NAIROBI, Jan 10 (IPS) - Thanks to antiretroviral drugs, HIV-positive children can now live to adulthood. Yet a significant number of children living with HIV in Kenya will die due to delay in receiving anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), inconsistent use of ARVs or, simply, no ARVs.

GAZA CITY, Jan 10 (IPS) - The border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip used to buzz with activity until a few months back as traders brought in an array of Egyptian goods â€" from food supplies to raw material - through hundreds of tunnels.