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New York: 2010 was one of the deadliest years for natural disasters in the past two decades and unless better preparations are put in place now, many more disasters can be expected in years to come, the UN’s top disaster reduction official said today.

New York: A deadly cattle plague that has brought famine, agricultural havoc and economic ruin to herders for millennia, will officially be declared eradicated in June, a first ever in the battle against animal diseases and a highlight of World Veterinary Year, a senior United Nations official said today.

New York: The UN’s top refugee official has proposed a government-led plan of action to enable thousands of displaced Iraqis to return to their homes in the Middle Eastern country.

New Delhi: India and Indonesia are likely to sign an extradition treaty when the visiting Indonesian President Dr H Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will meet the Indian Prime Minister for delegation level talks here on Tuesday.

Is the customary post-election honeymoon of Haryana’s second Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government over? The question assumes importance in view of the plethora of problems the Congress ministry faces within 15 months of coming to power. The knotty problems include: Jats agitation for shifting of the trial as well as the 98 accused in the Mirchpur case from Delhi to Haryana, protests by Dera Sacha Sauda followers against the High Court’s orders directing the Dera chief to appear daily in the CBI court at Sirsa in the double murder case, the High Court’s strictures against land acquisitions by the state government and the Supreme Court’s criticism of the government for its easy-going ways of pursuing the court cases.

KOLKATA: As a fact finding team sent by the Election Commissioner of India ended its four day visit to disturbed areas of West Bengal, the ineptitude of the ruling Left front and the state administration was exposed ruthlessly.

New Delhi: The Indian government may draw some satisfaction that the incidences of attack on Indian migrants have declined and also bank on Australian government’s assurances, but the recent figures tell a different story of a sharp decline in Indian migration, particularly due to the fear factor.

When the Union Minister of Railways Mamtaa Banerjee presents the railway budget 2011-12 in the last week of February 2011, she will be confronted with the compulsion of populist measures in view of the forthcoming elections to the West Bengal Assembly during the first half of this year, where she has a personal stake of now or never, and maintaining financial viability of Indian Railways.

New York: The fifth round of United Nations-backed informal talks on the dispute over Western Sahara ended on Sunday with Morocco and the Frente Polisario agreeing to continue their discussions in March.

Director-General of World Trade Organization (WTO) Pascal Lamy, in his opening address to the Berlin Agriculture Ministers’ Summit on 22 January 2011, said that “trade plays or can play a better role in addressing the rise in food prices and tackling food insecurity. Trade is part of the solution, and not part of the problem.”