Pregnant Nicaraguan Girls Forced to Become Mothers

Carla lost everything when she got pregnant at the age of 13: her first year of secondary school, her family, her boyfriend, and her happiness. She spent a year panhandling on the streets of the Nicaraguan capital before she was taken in by a shelter for young mothers.

Q&A: Brazil Invited to Join U.N. Palestinian Refugee Agency

The policy of pacification of Rio de Janeiro’s violent favelas, or shantytowns, could serve as a model in some respects in Palestinian refugee camps, says Filippo Grandi, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine refugees, in this interview with IPS.

Immigration Policies Wreak Unseen Havoc on U.S. Communities

Deportation is a devastating experience for a family, breaking it apart and leading to emotional and mental stress for its members. But a new report from the Centre for American Progress shows that such duress extends beyond families and into the larger community as a whole.

Europe Thinks Again About Food

Present day European farming is based on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which was created over six decades ago by countries emerging from severe food shortages that swept the continent during and after the Second World War.

Millions of Jobless Desperate in Spain

The sun is shining in Spain as it does every summer. But millions of people in this crisis-stricken country are living in the shadow cast by Europe’s highest unemployment rate.

Disputes Arise Over Cambodia’s Killer Illness

The deaths of dozens of Cambodian children in recent months from an initially undiagnosed disease has highlighted the difficult balancing act between informing the public and potentially provoking panic.

Food Activists See Portents of New and Deeper Hunger Crisis

Food rights activists from around the world will descend on the coastal U.S. state of Florida next week to protest homelessness and hunger facing millions of people in the United States and across the globe.

Quotas in Brazil’s Public Universities to Democratise Education

A new law about to enter into effect in Brazil will reserve half of all admission slots in public universities for students who attended public primary and secondary schools. But the measure, aimed at expanding access to the country’s best universities, will require structural reforms.

Crocs and Humans Clash in Shrinking Space

Twenty two-year-old Ajay Kallu, hailing from the Bakultala village in northern Andamans, was devoured by an estuarine crocodile when he waded waist deep into a creek to fish on the morning of Aug. 1, marking the fifth fatal crocodile attack in 28 months in the remote Islands that lie at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

Children Treated as Lab Rats

Four-year-old Deepak Yadav, a mentally disabled boy from Indore city in the Indian state Madhya Pradesh, was being treated for stomach problems at Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, a government hospital for children attached to the M. G. M. Medical College.

Improving Public Transport in Dangerous Guatemala City

“Service is definitely improving. Transmetro is good quality and Transurbano is using the prepaid system, which means they can’t charge you extra,” said Manolo Contreras, one of the thousands of users of the public transit system in the Guatemalan capital, which is under renovation.

Families of ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ Victims Still Struggling

Sachiko Masumura (79) was standing just two kilometres away from the hypocentre of Little Boy, the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan over six and a half decades ago.

Kenyan Differences Melt With Gold

When Kenyan athlete David Lekuta Rudisha simultaneously became the first person ever to break the 1min 41sec mark in the 800m while also becoming the first person to set a world record at this year’s London Olympics on Thursday Aug. 9, he managed another first. He briefly united an ethnically divided nation.

Mexican Victims of Violence Take Aim Against U.S. Firearms

“The United States should stop producing so many weapons, which cause us so much harm. That country also suffers from so much violence, as billions of dollars go into manufacturing guns.”

“Latin America’s Miracle” – the Land of Invisible Inequality

It’s Friday morning, and Carlos, an executive at a real estate firm in the Chilean capital, gets up knowing that he will knock off early that day, as he does at the end of every week, to enjoy the weekend in the family’s vacation apartment on the coast with his wife and three daughters.

Elderly Find Few Places to Call Home

Mr. Jayakumar (73), a philanthropic bachelor hailing from a prosperous industrial family in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, decided at the age of 70 that it was time to settle down.

Mexicans Migrate – Body and Soul

Sergio Guerrero immigrated to the United States without documents in 2006 and returned to Mexico in 2010, converted to another religious faith. “I was Catholic, and there I met a lot of evangelicals, so I was reborn in Christ,” the 31-year-old father of three told IPS.

From the Ashes of Tragedy, Lessons for Disaster Management

At 4:30 a.m. on the morning of Jul. 30, sleeping passengers in carriage S 11 on the Chennai-bound Tamilnadu Express were awoken by a blazing fire, as the train approached the east coast town of Nellore, just two and a half hours shy of its final destination.

Pakistan Faces a ‘Youth Bomb’

“This is just a trailer of the horror that awaits us,” says noted demographer Farid Midhet, referring to Pakistan’s bulging population and the possibly corresponding  link to rising crime, including murders, robberies, rioting and extremist activity.

Portugal’s Innovative Drug Policy Offers Hope*

Portugal was traditionally one of the European countries with the lowest levels of drug use, until the 1980s and 1990s, when problematic drug abuse, especially of heroin, became a major problem.

India Drowning in Waste, Experts Warn

Almitra Patel, a civil engineer by qualification, says she was first alerted to India’s huge problem of inadequate waste disposal when she noticed that the frogs in the marshlands near her farmhouse, on the city’s outskirts, had stopped croaking.