PARIS, Mar 14 (IPS) - Laura Alcoba is an Argentine-born writer and translator who lives in Paris, France. Her first book, Manèges (The Rabbit House), described Argentina's "Dirty War" of the 1970s from a child's perspective, when even the very young knew what could happen "if your political sympathies drew the attention of the dictatorial military regime". Thousands were killed, tortured, and abducted, and many names remain among "los desaparecidos".

ROME, Mar 13 (IPS) - The suffering of children in war-torn Syria "hit rock bottom" in 2016 with the highest number of grave violations against them since verification began in 2014, underscored the United Nations children's agency.

ROME, Mar 13 (IPS) - New evidence is deepening scientific fears, advanced few years ago, that the Middle East and North Africa risk becoming uninhabitable in a few decades, as accessible fresh water has fallen by two-thirds over the past 40 years.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 13 (IPS) - Just this year, public and private stakeholders from around the globe marked the one-year anniversary of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The milestone served as an important reminder of the fifteen-year framework that is now in place.

ROME/GENEVA, Mar 13 (IPS) - Long decades of violence in the Middle East and Northern Africa, resulting from the proliferation of international and local conflicts, have strained the social fabric that once held peaceful Arab societies together, says a Geneva-based think tank promoting global dialogue.

ADDIS ABABA, Mar 12 (IPS) - Throughout a Sunday afternoon in the Ethiopian capital, Yemeni émigré men in their fifties and sixties arrive at a traditional Yemeni-styled mafraj room clutching bundles of green, leafy stalks: khat.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 12 (IPS) - The Super El Nino of 2015 to 2016 wrought droughts and floods around the world, yet it is its sister La Nina that is now fuelling drought and hunger in East Africa.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Mar 11 (IPS) - On Nov. 30 last year, a new high-performance ‘Super Computer' was installed at the University of the West Indies (UWI) during climate change week. Dubbed SPARKS - short for the Scientific Platform for Applied Research and Knowledge Sharing - the computer is already churning out the ‘big data' Caribbean small island states (SIDS) need to accurately forecast and mitigate the effects of climate change on the region.

ROME, Mar 10 (IPS) - Every day some 370 million children around the world are fed at school, while learning about healthy food and nutrition through school meals programmes that also help boost attendance, the United Nations reports.

ROME, Mar 10 (IPS) - In the northern part of Mount Kenya, there is an indigenous community -- the Il Lakipiak Maasai ("People of Wildlife") -- which owns and operates the only community-owned rhino sanctuary in the country.