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NEW DELHI: Indian Government has now mustered enough political courage to start fresh negotiations with Iran and Pakistan for the setting up of the three nation pipeline project which has been mired in controversy due to hard US stance against any country dealing with Iran at this stage. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has instructed the external affairs minister Dr. S M Krishna to discuss in details the issue of the improvement of the India-Iran relations during Mr. Krishna's talks in Teheran on May 15 on the occasion of the G-15 foreign ministers conference.

New York: The world still has time to avert catastrophe in Niger, where more than half the population have been hit by drought, while crucial humanitarian aid in the strife-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could be harmed by a premature withdrawal of peacekeepers, the top United Nations relief official has warned.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a successor one -year, SDR 2.322 billion (about US$3.46 billion) arrangement for Colombia under the Flexible Credit Line (FCL). The Colombian authorities have stated they intend to treat the arrangement as precautionary and not draw on the line. This arrangement succeeds the previous one-year FCL agreed by the Executive Board in May 2009.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a three-year Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement in an amount equivalent SDR 22.365 million (US$33.3 million) to support Guinea Bissau's medium-term economic program. The Executive Board also approved the second tranche of interim assistance under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative of SDR 1.016 million (US$1.5 million).

New York: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed climate change with Evo Morales Ayma, the President of Bolivia, which recently hosted a major civil society conference on the issue.

New York: Hundreds of thousands of women, nearly all of them in developing countries, die in childbirth every year, but this does not have to be the case, says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, calling for global support for United Nations efforts to make motherhood safe for all.

New York: Thousands of people in more than 40 countries across the globe will this weekend participate in United Nations-backed events organized to celebrate the beauty of bird migration and draw attention to the threat of extinction that some species of migratory birds face as a result of human activity.

New York: After fleeing Government-army clashes and walking some 60 kilometres to the border with Chad, 1,100 refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR) are being moved into a United Nations camp.

WASHINGTON - The World Bank has approved a US$ 6 million grant to the Sustainable Cerrado Initiative. This is the second and final part of a total US$ 13 million Global Environmental Facility (GEF) grant, which seeks to guarantee the conservation of the most biodiverse savanna in the world and that covers nearly 25% of the Brazilian territory. The first part of the grant, of US$ 7 million, was approved in March.

WASHINGTON, DC - Shandong Province in eastern China will benefit from an improved environment through an afforestation project supported by a new $60 million loan approved by the World Bank's Board of Executive Directors.