UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 17 (IPS) - This December, 195 nations plus the European Union will meet in Lima for two weeks for the crucial U.N. Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, known as COP 20. The hope in Lima is to produce the first complete draft of a new global climate agreement.

COLOMBO, Nov 17 (IPS) - Of the thousands of landslide-prone villages he has visited and worked with, R M S Bandara, a high-ranking official from Sri Lanka's National Building Resources Organisation (NBRO), says only one has made him sit up and take note.

FREETOWN, Nov 17 (IPS) - The outbreak of the deadly Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone has badly affected the West African country's move towards meeting key development goals. 

ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan, Nov 16 (IPS) - There is daily news broadcasting at 9 in the evening and a live programme every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. For the time being, that is what Mosul´s only TV channel has to offer from its headquarters in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

GAZIANTEP, Turkey, Nov 15 (IPS) - For most Syrian women, the war has been a disaster. For some, it has also been liberating.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 (IPS) - Next week marks 25 years since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a historic commitment to children and the most widely accepted human rights treaty in history.

NEW DELHI, Nov 14 (IPS) - It was 9:45 pm when 23-year-old Manira Chaudhury, a final-year Master's student in New Delhi, who was traveling home in a rickshaw, pressed a button on her smart phone that sent out emergency alerts to two of her closest friends.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 14 (IPS) - When the advances made towards curbing global warming are analysed in the first 12 days of December in Lima, during the 20th climate conference, Latin America will present some achievements, as well as the many challenges it faces in "decarbonising development".

JUBA, Nov 14 (IPS) - Dressed in a flowered African print kitenge and a blue head scarf, Sabur Samson, 27, sits pensively at the HIV centre at Maridi Civil Hospital in South Sudan's Western Equatoria state. 

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (IPS) - The United States proposed Tuesday that the international community write off 100 million dollars in debt owed by West African countries hit hardest by the current Ebola outbreak. The money would be re-invested in health and other public programming.