UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 (IPS) - The global rate of maternal deaths is reducing faster than any time in history, according to a new report presented to the United Nations on Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 (IPS) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a creature of the U.N.'s 193 member states and who serves at their will and pleasure, did not hesitate to fault 13 countries that kept women out of their national parliaments and governments in power.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 (IPS) - The government of Guatemala has been praised for a programme helping young women avoid unwanted pregnancies and finish their education.

SÃO PAULO, Mar 10 (IPS) - Six million people in Brazil's biggest city, São Paulo, may at some point find themselves without water. The February rains did not ward off the risk and could even aggravate it by postponing rationing measures which hydrologists have been demanding for the last six months.

TAIPEI, Mar 10 (IPS) - From Columbia University in New York to the University of Cambridge in Britain, college classrooms are picking up on the "cli-fi" genre of fiction, and cinema and academia is right behind them.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 (IPS) - Two hundred million fewer women have access to the internet than men, according to a report released Monday.

PESHAWAR, Mar 10 (IPS) - A doctor shakes his head in despair as he examines a 10-year-old child at the Jalozai refugee camp, about 35 km by road from Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.

MEXICO CITY, Mar 09 (IPS) - Traditionally, falling oil prices have discouraged development of renewable energy sources, but clean energy is making steady progress in Latin America, according to regional experts.