News stories by Denis Foynes

A new report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) describes a pattern of attacks on medical staff that the group says is undermining the safe delivery of medical assistance and health care across the globe.

A United Nations report on Iraq says the human rights situation there remains fragile, and huge development challenges loom as the country transitions out of a near decade-long conflict.

'The Whistle Blower', a feature film inspired by actual events that occurred in 1999, follows the story of Kathy Bolkovac (Academy Award-winner Rachel Weisz), a U.S. police officer who takes a job working as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia.

'First, they bound my arms, and then they threw me on the ground face down. The interrogators pulled my head back by grabbing my hair and kept asking, 'Who are you?'

International donors have given more than one billion dollars to ease the famine in Somalia and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, but U.N. officials say another billion will be needed to prevent the situation from deteriorating in other areas.

'It has been 65 years but please don’t retire' Vincent Cochetel United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees joked from the podium in the Museum of the City of New York.

'I have never seen anything like it. Many mothers have lost three or four children. It's a tragedy out here,' Austin Kennan, regional director for the Horn of Africa for Concern Worldwide, told IPS from within the crisis zone.

'I'm ready. Let's get this show on the road,' Humberto Leal Garcia told a prison warden minutes before his execution in Texas on the night of Jul. 7.

It was a tragedy on Mother's Day for Nuala Kerr. Her son Ronan had been a police constable for three months when he was murdered by dissident republicans in April.

Sixty percent of all global deaths are now caused by non- communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cancer, diabetes and lung disease, according to a report by the U.N. Secretary-General's office.