NEW YORK, Feb 23 (IPS) - Recent new data show a worrying picture of Latin America and the Caribbean. Income poverty reduction has stagnated and the number of poor has risen — for the first time in a decade — according to recent figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

ROME, Feb 23 (IPS) - Overcoming hunger and malnutrition in the 21st century no longer means simply increasing the quantity of available food but also the quality.

HARARE, Feb 21 (IPS) - Reports this year of illicit moneys from African countries stashed in a Swiss bank – indicating that corruption lies behind much of the income inequality that affects the continent – have grabbed international news headlines.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 (IPS) - Iraqi women continue to be subject to physical, emotional and sexual violence, according to a new report by Minority Rights Group International and Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights.

, Feb 20 (IPS) - On the blue flame of her biogas stove, it takes half as long for rural doctor Arianna Toledo to heat bath water and cook dinner as it did four years ago, when she still used electric power or firewood.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 20 (IPS) - It is no surprise that most Pakistani journalists work under tremendous stress; caught between crime lords in its biggest cities, militant groups across its tribal belt and rival political parties throughout the country, censorship, intimidation and death seem almost to come with the territory.

AL ARAQIB, Negev Desert, Israel, Feb 20 (IPS) - Lehavim Junction in the northern Negev in Israel has been the backdrop to protests against home demolitions in Bedouin localities for the past four and half years.

WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (IPS) - As the Congress ponders President Barack Obama's request for an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to fight the Islamic State (ISIS or IS), American policymakers must focus on the "morning after" before they embark on another potentially disastrous war in the Levant.

NEW DELHI, Feb 19 (IPS) - So much information about climate change now abounds that it is hard to differentiate fact from fiction. Scientific reports appear alongside conspiracy theories, data is interspersed with drastic predictions about the future, and everywhere one turns, the bad news just seems to be getting worse.