News stories by Kitty Stapp, page 9

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 09 (IPS) - The United Nations, which has remained deadlocked over Syria, is in danger of being craftily exploited to justify the impending air strike on Damascus.

WASHINGTON, Sep 04 (IPS) - An international coalition has agreed to begin working towards domestic regulation aimed at reducing the use of HFCs, compounds commonly used as refrigerants but referred to as "super greenhouse gases" for their particularly negative impact on global warming.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 03 (IPS) - When Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was South Korea's foreign minister during 2004-2006, his answers to reporters were so predictably evasive the press corps in Seoul affectionately dubbed him "the slippery eel".

NEW YORK, Sep 03 (IPS) - Siddharth Chatterjee has served as the chief diplomat, head of strategic partnerships and international relations at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the world's largest humanitarian network, since June 2011.

MANAMA, Aug 21 (IPS) - On Aug. 14, the 42^nd anniversary of Bahrain's independence from Britain, an online group called Tarmarod ("rebellion" in Arabic) officially joined Bahrain's democracy movement that began in February 2011.

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (IPS) - Countries in nearly every region of the world are continuing to turn to a U.S.-led model of prison privatisation despite mounting evidence that such systems are often neither cost-efficient nor able to provide adequate services.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Aug 19 (IPS) - The Caribbean is in danger of becoming "a region of serial defaulters" with respect to international debt obligations, according to one expert, and this may partly be due to its economies suffering frequent shocks from natural disasters.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 16 (IPS) - The United States, which has refused to cut off its hefty 1.3 billion dollars in annual military aid to Egypt, continues to argue that depriving arms to the 438,500-strong security forces will only "destabilise" the crisis-ridden country.

WASHINGTON, Aug 06 (IPS) - In the last decade, several countries in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region have had the opportunity to experience economic growth and establish redistributive fiscal policies aimed at reducing poverty, reducing inequality and improving the coverage and quality of health, education and social protection services.