NEW YORK
United Nations, Room S-485, New York, NY 10017
Email: ipsun@aol.com
Tel.: (212) 963-6156/963-1175
Fax: (212) 888-6099

Thalif Deen, U.N. Bureau Chief and Regional Director, Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, has been covering the United Nations since the late 1970s. A former deputy news editor of the Sri Lanka Daily News, he was also a senior editorial writer on the Hong Kong Standard. In 1997, he was awarded the Bronze Medal for "excellence in U.N. reporting", at the annual awards presentation of the U.N. Correspondents' Association. A former Information Officer at the U.N. Secretariat, and a one-time member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the U.N. General Assembly sessions, he is currently editor of the IPS UN Journal Terra Viva and the UN correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly, London. Since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, he has covered virtually every single major UN conference-- on population, children, human rights, environment, social development, globalization and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A former Middle East military editor at Jane's Information Group in the U.S, he is a Fulbright-Hayes scholar with a Master's degree in Journalism from Columbia University, New York.

Katherine Stapp (Regional Editor) has written for IPS since 1999. Her work has been cited twice by Project Censored. In 2001, she was awarded the New Horizons in Science Fellowship, a Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW) grant. She has written numerous stories on health and environmental issues, including a six-part series for IPS on Gender, HIV/AIDS and Human Rights that examined issues such as equal access to care, gender differences in ARV treatment, the advent of rapid testing techniques, and NGO strategies to increase AIDS funding. Based in New York City, she is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.

Mithre J. Sandrasagra, U.N. Correspondent, Inter Press Service (IPS), has been covering the the United Nations since 1999. Before that he administered a sustainable development trust in Sri Lanka. He holds a Bachelors Degree in International Relations and Economics from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, as well as a Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University in New York. Mithre also serves as Administrator for the North American region.

Haider Rizvi, U.N. Correspondent, Inter Press Service (IPS), has written for IPS for more than 10 years. He joined IPS in 1993. From 1994-1997, he reported on US domestic politics and foreign policy from Washington, DC. In1997, he moved to New York to study at Columbia University where he received a masters degree in journalism. After writing for several US-based publications, Mr. Rizvi joined IPS United Nations Bureau in 2002. At the UN, he specializes in reporting on international human rights issues and sustainable development as well asdisarmament, women's rights, and indigenous peoples' rights.

WASHINGTON:
592 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20045
Tel.: (202) 662-7160/7177
Fax: (202) 662-7164
Email: ipswas@igc.org

Jim Lobe, Washington Bureau Chief

Abid Aslam, Global Trade and Finance Correspondent