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New York: The United Nations refugee agency today welcomed the “positive indications” it has received from Tunisia and Egypt that they will keep their borders open for people fleeing violence in neighbouring Libya.

New York: Wielding an Oscar that the United Nations won over 60 years ago for a film on children with disabilities, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is seeking to mobilize Hollywood to help the world body fund and spread its humanitarian message to every corner of the globe.

New York: A forest conservation initiative in Guatemala and a sustainable development project in Nepal are the recipients of this year’s Sasakawa Prize, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced today.

New Delhi: The Minister of Petroleum, Shri S. Jaipal Reddy has emphasized the need for improving understanding of inter-linkages between the physical and financial markets to address the issues of price volatility and price discovery. Speaking at the International Energy Forum (IEF), Extraordinary Ministerial Meeting at Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) Yesterday, he added that oil price discovery cannot be left entirely unregulated. Shri Reddy underlined that unregulated over-the-Counter (OTC) transactions and trading in ‘paper barrels’, along with unbridled speculation activity were to blame for unprecedented oil price rise in 2008.

New Delhi: The 43rd Session of Indian Labour Conference deliberated on a number of labour related issues and made a number of recommendations. One of the recommendations, inter-alia, was consideration of an Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme.

New Delhi: Labour Bureau has conducted the household survey on employment–unemployment in 300 districts covering 28 States/UTs in the country for the reference period April, 2009 – March, 2010. As per results of this survey, total number of unemployed persons (all ages) on usual principal status basis has been estimated at 39.96 million during 2009-10.

New Delhi: The Union Ministry for Human Resource Development, has constituted a Task Force to examine applications from ‘institutions that need to take corrective measures to several criteria for satisfying the Deemed University status’ regarding rectification of the deficiencies mentioned in the Report of the Committee constituted to review functioning of institutions deemed to be universities.

New Delhi: The Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja has said that a Technical Group constituted by the Ministry in 2006 to assess the urban housing shortage has estimated that at the end of the 10th Five Year Plan (2007-08), the total housing shortage in the country was 24.71 million. Further, an additional requirement of 1.82 million dwelling units has been projected for the 11th Plan, bringing the total housing requirement during the 11th Plan Period (2007-2012) to 26.53 Million dwelling units.

New Delhi: An Inter-Ministerial Committee was constituted by the Department of Telecommunications to examine adoption of safety limits for exposure to radio frequency energy produced by mobile handsets i.e. Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) levels of exposure from a mobile hand-set.

New Delhi: The Department of Posts has decided to improve the Look and Feel of its post offices through Project Arrow. The project has been launched with the objective of modernising departmental post offices across the country in a phased manner with an aim to make visible, tangible and noteworthy difference in post office operations. It aims at comprehensive improvement of the core operations of the post office as well as the ambience in which postal transactions are undertaken.