COLOMBO, Feb 03 (IPS) - On Jan. 8, 2009, the Sri Lankan media suffered a debilitating attack.

GENEVA, Feb 03 (IPS) - Industry's demands and political pressures exerted by developed countries to expand and strengthen patent protection worldwide have been based on the argument that patents promote innovation and thereby contribute to achieve social, political and economic well-being, independently of the level of development of the country where they are granted and enforced.

KINGSTON, Feb 02 (IPS) - A plan that government says will slow the rate of erosion on Jamaica's world-famous Negril beach is being opposed by the people whose livelihoods it is meant to protect.

SANTIAGO, Feb 02 (IPS) - In Latin America's prisons, notorious for extreme overcrowding and violence, inmates live in constant danger of being killed – a contradiction in a region where virtually every country has abolished the death penalty.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 02 (IPS) - The flooding of the Zambezi River has had devastating consequences for three countries in Southern Africa. The three worst affected countries are Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. 

NEW DELHI, Feb 02 (IPS) - Eleven-year-old Chottu* works 12 hours daily at a roadside tea joint near New Delhi's bustling interstate bus terminus.

ADDIS ABABA, Feb 01 (IPS) - While Africa's economies are among the world's fastest growing economies, hundreds of millions of Africans are living on or below the poverty line of 1.25 dollars a day, a principal factor in causing widespread hunger.

BONN, Jan 31 (IPS) - The first global treaty dealing with biodiversity was the Ramsar Convention – predating the Rio processes by 20 years.

BABINEY, Cuba, Jan 31 (IPS) - Most people in Cuba without toilets use the traditional outhouse. But an innovative, ecological alternative is catching on in remote rural communities.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 (IPS) - A recent case study on Canadian mining abuses in Latin America has woven one more thread of justice in the tapestry of international law.