UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25 (IPS) - As the international community marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, one question worthy of some reflection is: Is world population better or worse off demographically since the establishment of the U.N.?

CASTRIES, Feb 25 (IPS) - At Plas Kassav, a roadside outlet in Canaries, a rural community in western St. Lucia, a busload of visitors from other Caribbean countries, along with tourists from North America and Europe, sample the 12 flavours of freshly baked cassava bread on sale.

NEW DELHI, Feb 25 (IPS) - Like many others of her age, 15-year-old Aastha Sharma, a Class 10 student at a private school in India's capital, New Delhi, loves being outdoors, going for walks with her friends and enjoying an occasional ice-cream. But the young girl can't indulge in any of these activities.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 24 (IPS) - The warring parties in the brutal four-year-old military conflict in Syria, which has claimed the lives of over 200,000 civilians and triggered "the greatest refugee crisis in modern times," continue to break every single pledge held out to the United Nations.

NEW DELHI, Feb 24 (IPS) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to action for a 100 percent Open Defecation Free (ODF) India by 2019 was announced as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) or Clean India Campaign last year.

SYDNEY, Feb 24 (IPS) - Corruption, the single largest obstacle to socioeconomic development worldwide, has had a grave impact on the southwest Pacific Island nation of Papua New Guinea. While mineral resource wealth drove high gross domestic product (GDP) growth of eight percent in 2012, the country is today ranked 157^th out of 187 countries in terms of human development.

NEW YORK, Feb 24 (IPS) - After twin suicide bombings at a popular Mogadishu hotel last week that killed 25 and wounded 40, news reporters were seen swarming through the city, spotlighting the victims, the assassins, the motives and the official response.

KATHMANDU, Feb 24 (IPS) - The picture of Muktinath Adhikari, principal of Pandini Sanskrit Secondary School in the Lamjung district of west Nepal who was killed during the country's decade-long civil conflict, became an iconic portrayal of the brutality of the bloody ‘People's War'.

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 23 (IPS) - The government of Argentina is building a marriage of convenience with China, which some see as uneven and others see as an indispensable alliance for a new level of insertion in the global economy.

CAIRO, Feb 23 (IPS) - In November 2013, a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey ranked Egypt as the worst of 22 Arab states with regards to women's rights.