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The world may be formally out of the Great Recession, as a result of unprecedented levels of globally co-ordinated monetary and fiscal actions of leading economies, but it is not out of the woods yet. Recovery in advanced economies in 2010 is too slow for comfort with little hope for the unemployed millions or for a rise in household incomes to boost consumption and growth.

Pranab Mukherjee can rightly feel proud of the massive majority with which he got his finance bill passed in the Lok Sabha. The combined opposition had put up a stiff fight against India's most market-friendly union budgets. There have been rumblings even within the Congress party over the sweeping budget imposts that are bound to worsen the price situation. A victory amidst all such adversities has rightly enhanced Mukherjee's status as the Congress party's best trouble-shooter.

New York: Nearly 1.1 million young children in Tajikistan will start receiving vaccines next week against polio, the sometimes deadly disease which has returned to the Central Asian country where it was thought to have been eradicated 13 years ago, United Nations agencies reported.

New York: Global biodiversity has been declining alarmingly despite a pledge by world leaders in 2002 to help curb the loss of earthly life forms, a new United Nations-supported study shows.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is opening two new resident representative offices, in Jamaica and in Antigua and Barbuda, the latter to cover IMF member countries in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. The establishment of these offices will further deepen the IMF's dialogue with the country's authorities and other important regional stakeholders, including trade unions, the private sector, academics, and non-governmental organizations. The IMF already has a Resident Representative office in Haiti.

New York: The Security Council has extended the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission tasked with organizing a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara for another year.

New York: The relationship between indigenous peoples and forests was among the major issues discussed during a two-week forum at United Nations Headquarters that wrapped up, with participants voicing concern about the impact on lives and livelihoods of deforestation, extraction activities and large-scale building projects.

New York: The quality and reach of health care in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) needs to improve and the country's Government should allocate more of its domestic budget for health programmes, a senior United Nations official said after wrapping up a visit to the Asian country.

New York: Regional cooperation and partnerships among the public, private and civil society could help the Asia and Pacific region lead to the development of a road map to low-carbon economic growth, participants said at a United Nations forum in China.

New York: The United Nations-backed tribunal in Cambodia dealing with mass killings and other crimes committed under the Khmer Rouge three decades ago dismissed appeals by three of the regime's leaders to release them from provisional detention ahead of their trials.