ACCRA, Ghana, Apr 03 (IPS) - Developing countries are being blamed for having borrowed and spent irresponsibly. But they have only been doing what foreign powers and financial interests have urged them to do.

A young mother in Madagascar has been describing how she was forced to make a 200km emergency journey on challenging rural roads to a specialist regional hospital after she experienced difficulties giving birth at home.

All warring parties must allow safe, swift and unfettered humanitarian access and protect civilian infrastructure, top UN officials told the Security Council on Wednesday.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday expressed dismay over the decision by Uganda’s Constitutional Court to uphold the country’s discriminatory Anti-Homosexuality Act, which has already led to hundreds of rights violations.

UN humanitarians in Gaza have suspended operations at night for at least 48 hours in response to the killing of seven aid workers from the NGO World Central Kitchen on Tuesay.

As hostilities continue in Gaza, the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, urged donors not to forget about Palestinians affected by the ongoing war in Syria.

The scale of the bombs dropped on Gaza since 7 October means that it will take millions of dollars, and many years, to decontaminate the Strip from unexploded munitions, the head of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in Palestine tells UN News, ahead of Mine Action Day.

SANTIAGO, Apr 02 (IPS) - Orlando Milesi interviews MARIO LUBETKIN, FAO regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean"I'm more optimistic than before" about the goal of ending hunger included in the 2030 agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean, said FAO regional representative Mario Lubetkin in an interview with IPS.

NAIROBI, Apr 02 (IPS) - Despite global childhood cancer mortality rates dropping by half over the past 50 years, these promising statistics do not extend to Africa and the Global South, where limited resources mean that most cancers are diagnosed at advanced stages.

PORTLAND, USA, Apr 02 (IPS) - The de facto peace plan of Israel is Greater Israel (Eretz Yisrael Hashlema) with a dominant Jewish majority, which Israel expects America will accept and support.