PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jun 04 (IPS) - With its lush valleys and well-watered plains, Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province produces plenty of food for the local population, including 10 million tons of wheat every year. So why are the people of this bountiful mountainous region going hungry?

CARACAS, Jun 04 (IPS) - Although Venezuela has 520 long rivers, taps often run dry, many poor neighbourhoods depend on tanker trucks, water rationing remains a reality, and in some areas water quality is very poor.

ABDIJAN, Côte d’Ivoire, Jun 04 (IPS) - Two years ago, it would have taken Catherine Adjoua almost an hour to travel from M'Badon, the isolated fishing area where she lives that has no asphalt roads, to reach her workplace some 13 kilometres away in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire's economic capital.

WASHINGTON, Jun 03 (IPS) - In contrast to some of their leaders, people across the Arab world prefer President Barack Obama's efforts to reduce Washington's military footprint in the Middle East to the approach favoured by neo-conservatives and other U.S. hawks, according to the latest in a series of surveys of Arab public opinion released here Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, Jun 03 (IPS) - For the first time, nearly 1,300 U.S. companies have filed reports on whether the products they manufacture or sell are made with minerals that have bankrolled conflict in the Great Lakes region of central Africa.

WASHINGTON, Jun 03 (IPS) - After half a century, Colombia may put an end to its conflict—if the U.S. will allow it.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jun 03 (IPS) - New efforts by the U.S. to reduce its carbon emissions are being welcomed around the world. On Monday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a plan to cut carbon emissions from power plants 25 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

BONN, Jun 03 (IPS) - It's beginning to sink in that our climate is changing more rapidly than at any time in recorded history and it will have profound and irreversible effects on the planet. On World Environment Day on Jun. 5, let's stop for a moment to consider in particular the devastating impact that climate change is having on small island states and their wildlife. 

ROME, Jun 03 (IPS) - Modern biofuels have become a fact of life, part of a quest for more cost-effective and environmentally sustainable businesses and lifestyles. But to be truly sustainable, biofuel production must strike a balance between its benefits and its potential hidden costs, between energy security and food security.

BOSTON, Jun 03 (IPS) - In the past 15 years, China has gone from being a relatively insignificant economic partner in Latin America to the number-one trading partner of some of the largest economies in the region.