The UN’s trade and development body has downgraded its global economic growth projection for 2022 to 2.6% from 3.6% due to the Ukraine war and to changes in macroeconomic policies made by countries in recent months. While Russia will experience a deep recession this year, significant slowdowns in growth are …
Officials from five Arctic coastal countries will meet in Greenland this week to discuss how to carve up the Arctic Ocean, which could hold up to one-quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves. Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States are squabbling over much of the Arctic …
The United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) is trying to convince army-ruled Myanmar not to place at least 2,000 youngsters orphaned by this month's cyclone into state-run homes, a senior official said on Monday. "We should try and place children within family environments as a priority, and not in institutions," Anne-Claire …
A devastating disaster hits a longstanding Asian dictatorship. The crisis is compounded by failed economic policies and conflicts with neighbors. The world stands ready to help, but the regime dithers and aid goes undelivered. Even information on the catastrophe is scarce thanks to a media blackout, government propaganda and denial. …
The French navy has given up the idea of trying to deliver humanitarian aid directly to Myanmar and will instead divert its cargo to neighbouring Thailand, the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The statement said the UN World Food Programme would take charge of the shipment …
The World Health Organisation's member governments overcame a rich-poor rift over how to manage intellectual property on Saturday and endorsed a strategy to help developing countries access more life-saving medicines. At the United Nations agency's annual policy-setting meeting in Geneva, governments also called for WHO Director-General Margaret Chan to finalise …
The United Nations' top climate-change official expressed concern Saturday about what Japan means by "industrial sectoral" approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and warned that the concept should not replace national targets in any new environmental treaty that would take effect when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. "Recent statements …
Pointing that there are now just 12 crops and 14 animal species that provide most of the world's food, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has asked countries to protect genetic diversity of crops at a time of soaring food prices.
International Day for Biological Diversity is being observed on Thursday to raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity at a time when over 60 per cent of ecosystem services were being degraded as a result of human activity. One of the most important challenges facing mankind today is to feed …
Myanmar's junta has given the World Food Program permission to use helicopters to send aid to cyclone survivors, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as flags flew at half-staff across the country to mourn the dead. The first day of a three-day mourning period passed in torrential rain and diplomatic …
As the world grapples with fears of a major food crisis, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator has decided to reserve $100 million from the world body's emergency fund to address immediate issues arising from it. John Holmes, who also serves as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said that these funds …
UN chief Ban Ki-moon will travel to Myanmar on Wednesday to try to persuade the leaders of military regime to allow large-scale foreign aid and humanitarian workers to provide assistance to millions of victims of Cyclone Nargis, which has killed over 100,000. Ban's three-day visit comes as the world body …
About 70 per cent of Myanmar's hungry cyclone survivors remain without UN food aid more than two weeks after the disaster, forcing them to leave their villages, relief workers said on Monday. With the junta so far resisting calls to allow enough foreign disaster experts in to help direct the …
Soaring food prices, a devalued currency and drought mean millions of people in Somalia cannot feed themselves, the United Nations said on Monday. And the crisis will get much worse if April-June rains fail or are well below average, the Food and Agriculture Organisation said. Somalia, a country of nine …
Nearly 200 governments will say next week they are unlikely to meet a target of slowing the rate of extinctions of living species by 2010, a failure which could threaten future food supplies. Up to 5,000 delegates and some heads of state, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will try to …
Below, eight leaders in the fight against hunger offer up food crisis action plans, and long term ideas for how to end famine and bolster farming. Every day, 25,000 people die from hunger-related causes. And when food accounts for more than half a poor family's spending, price rises can be …
The total number of food insecure people was probably closer to about three billion, or about half the population of the world, according to the United Nations midyear update of the World Economic Situation and Prospects. In addition, approximately 18,000 children die daily as a direct or indirect consequence of …
China has shown up Myanmar's generals. But it is not too late for outsiders to help the Burmese Eyevine IT HAS taken another catastrophe, this one in China, to show the generals who run Myanmar how better to respond to a natural disaster. Ten days after a cyclone struck Myanmar …
The global scenario on preserving biological diversity remains dismal. The latest findings of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) show that nations, including India, all signatories to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), are unlikely to achieve the target set for them by 2010 to protect their biodiversity. …
