News stories by IPS Correspondents, page 2

, Oct 24 (IPS) - The goal is an ambitious one – to deliver a polio-free world by 2018. Towards this end, the multi-sector Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is bringing out the big guns, sparing no expense to ensure that "every last child" is immunised against the crippling disease.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 30 (IPS) - A normally quiet second-grade student, Yuan Yuan* suffers from a mild mental disorder that impacts her ability to learn and communicate. Her father, also mentally disabled, left her several years ago to find work in the city and his family hasn't heard from him since. Unable to support the family, her mother also left and never returned.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 (IPS) - "My mother used to just stay at home, now she has come back and is an engineer and a leader. She is on the Village Energy Committee," said a 10-year-old girl from the village of Chekeleni, in Tanzania's southeastern Mtwara district.

CAJÍO, Cuba/RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 11 (IPS) - The extinction of a single species (a fish off the coast of Cuba, a bird in the Brazilian forest) creates a void that can trigger a whole series of repercussions, from the alteration of ecosystems to increased hunger.

PRAGUE/WARSAW, Nov 14 (IPS) - Pressure from the Catholic Church, social stigma, a lack of information about sexuality and reproductive health and limited access to reproductive healthcare services are putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of women across Eastern Europe at risk.

YAOUNDE/ROME, Oct 23 (IPS) - “One in eight people goes to sleep hungry every day,” according to the ‘State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012’, a document released annually by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

OUAGADOUGOU, Aug 31 (IPS) - For far too many households in Burkina Faso, going to the toilet means heading for the bush. The Burkinabè government has launched a new campaign to change this, calling on prominent personalities as both sponsors and champions.

SRINAGAR, India, Aug 30 (IPS) - The violence that killed thousands in Kashmir during the turbulent 1990s has eased; now killer roads are taking their toll.

RAFAH, Gaza, Aug 30 (IPS) - “I waited from 10 am till 5 pm for my wife to cross from Egypt. She was among many hundreds who were coming into Gaza. Some waited since 6 am, some since the day before.”

JERUSALEM, Aug 29 (IPS) - On a sunny summer afternoon, kids start arriving with their parents at a park near Ein Rafa, a Palestinian village in the south of Jerusalem. The Arabic speaking kids stay in one cluster at first, and the Hebrew speaking kids chat among themselves. Soon a ball appears, and before long all the kids intermingle in a fast-paced game of Chinese football.