MEXICO CITY, Aug 18 (IPS) - Homes for orphans or children in vulnerable situations in Mexico lack the necessary state regulation and supervision, which leads to scandalous human rights violations.

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Aug 18 (IPS) - Amid accelerating climate change and other challenges, a major international conference in the South Pacific island nation of Samoa next month represents a key chance for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Caribbean to turn the tide.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 (IPS) - The Arms Trade Treaty is about to provide the biggest shake-up to conventional arms trade transparency since the end of the Cold War.

BELFAST, Aug 18 (IPS) - I once asked Dan Berrigan, the great American anti-war activist, for some advice to me in my life as a peace activist. He replied "Pray and Resist".

REYKJAVIK, Aug 18 (IPS) - Although fin whaling by Icelanders has encountered increasing opposition over the last year, Icelandic whaling boats headed off to sea again in mid-June for the first hunt of the summer and by August 14 had killed 80 fin whales.

KIEV, Aug 17 (IPS) - Doctors are warning of a worsening tuberculosis epidemic in Eastern Ukraine as the continuing conflict there begins to take a heavy toll on public health.

ALEPPO, Syria, Aug 16 (IPS) - Volunteer civil defence units operating here in Syria's largest city careen through crater-pocked routes of precariously hanging, pancaked concrete where barrel bombs have struck.

GAZA CITY, Aug 16 (IPS) - "My child became blind and lost the ability to speak, his dad died and his three brothers are seriously wounded. He still has not been told about the loss of his dad," says the mother of 7-year-old Mohamad Badran. 

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 16 (IPS) - The death of socialist presidential candidate Eduardo Campos opens up an unexpected opportunity for environmental leader Marina Silva to return with renewed strength to the struggle to govern Brazil, offering a "third way" in a highly polarised campaign.

WASHINGTON, Aug 15 (IPS) - U.S. President Barack Obama has proposed to more than double the world's no-fishing areas to protect what some call America's underwater Serengeti, a series of California-sized swaths of Pacific Ocean where 1,000-pound marlin cruise by 30-foot-wide manta rays around underwater mountains filled with rare or unique species.