News stories by Samuel Oakford

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 (IPS) - This week, the U.N. reported that coca cultivation in Bolivia fell nine percent last year, and a massive 26 percent in the past three years.

NEW YORK, Jun 09 (IPS) - Six years after the financial crisis, Wall Street's housing alchemy engine is revving up again - only this time it's coming for your rental.

UNITED NATIONS, May 06 (IPS) - A report released Tuesday by the London School of Economics (LSE) depicts drug prohibition as a massive failure, a financial drain on economies and a violation of the basic human rights of citizens.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 (IPS) - After a week that saw a massacre inside a U.N. base and wide-scale ethnic-based slaughter in an oil-producing region, the international community is grappling with what, if any, options remain to save lives in South Sudan.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 07 (IPS) - Policy uncertainty and plummeting solar prices led to a 14-percent decrease in investment in renewable energy in 2013, according to a report released Monday.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 27 (IPS) - The number of recorded executions carried out worldwide rose 14 percent last year, as anti-terrorism measures in Iraq and hardline drug polices in Iran accounted for more than half of all reported government-sanctioned killings in 2013.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 26 (IPS) - An interim human rights report released by the beleaguered U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan is being tentatively hailed by rights groups and observers who have pressured the mission to be more transparent with its findings.

NEW YORK, Feb 26 (IPS) - The Pine Ridge Reservation of the Lakota Nation, in the midwest of the United States, is one of the most abandoned places in the country and in the world.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 21 (IPS) - Facing a crucial meeting this week in Bali, the board of the U.N.'s Green Climate Fund (GCF) once again postponed drawing out the bulk of policy that will guide the fund as it prepares to open later in 2014.

NEW YORK, Feb 10 (IPS) - Despite evolving public awareness and alarm over climate change, subsidies for the production and consumption of fossil fuels remain a stubborn impediment to shifting the world's energy matrix towards renewable sources.