Trade : Venezuela initiates dispute against Colombia over liquid fuels (PRIV)
(Kanaga Raja, Geneva)
Venezuela has initiated a dispute at the Wo rld Trade Organisation (WTO) over certain measures maintained by the Colombian Government governing the distribution of liquid fuels.

Opinion : Gloom ahead of world economic storm (PRIV)
(IPS, Sydney/Kuala Lumpur)
Sydney/Kuala Lumpur, 15 Jan (IPS/Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram*) -- In light of the uncertainty caused by the US-China trade war, the IMF expects the US economic growth to slow from a three-year high of 2.9 pe r cent in 2018 to 2.5 per cent in 2019, while China's expansion has already s lowed in recent years, albeit from much higher levels.

Latin America : Shedding light on forced child pregnancy and motherhood (PRIV)
(IPS, Lima)
Research and campaigns by women's rights advocates are beginning to focus on the problem of Latin American girls und er the age of 14 who are forced to bear the children of their rapists, with the li felong implications that entails and without the protection of public policies gua ranteeing their human rights.

Nicaragua : Journalism under siege (PRIV)
(IPS, Managua)
Eight months of social and politic al crisis in Nicaragua have hit the exercise of independent journalism in the country, with 712 cases of violations of the free exercise of journalism, one murder ed reporter, two in prison and dozens fleeing into exile, in addition to sever al media outlets assaulted by the security forces.

Cuba : Local innovation facilitates solidarity-based biogas networks (PRIV)
(IPS, Havana)
Black plastic pipes, readily available o n the mainly empty shelves of Cuba's shops, distribute biogas to homes in the rur al town of La Macuca, buried under the ground or running through the grass and stones in people's yards.