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New York: A new video game being launched by the United Nations aims to provide young people with accurate and reliable information about HIV prevention, while educating, entertaining and promoting healthy behaviour.

New York: Lebanese President Michel Sleiman today reaffirmed his country’s “consensus” support for the United Nations peacekeeping operation that was strengthened in 2006 as part of the agreement that ended fighting between Israel and Hizbollah.

New York: The United Nations has delivered ballots for more than 4 million voters in Southern Sudan for next month’s independence referendum, culminating a six-year peace process that ended two decades of civil war between the north and south.

New York: Governments in Africa can facilitate economic transformation and sustainable development through policies that give incentives to businesses and industry to thrive, according to a preview released today of a forthcoming joint report by the United Nations and the African Union.

New York: The United Nations and other aid agencies today began providing vital humanitarian assistance to thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) sheltered outside the UN-African Union mission’s sites in Darfur now that restrictions have been lifted on all air and road movements to areas of recent fighting.

New York: The United Nations refugee agency today urged Thailand not to forcibly return a group of some 166 Myanmar nationals who fled their country amid renewed fighting and are currently seeking temporary protection from the Royal Government.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An epoch has come to a close with the death of the ‘Bhismacharya of Kerala politics’, Kannoth Karunakaran.

It has never been easy to shake the 125-year-old lumbering behemoth called the Indian National Congress into wakefulness and activity. This becomes the more difficult when the party comes under Opposition attack and instinctively retreats into denial and unconvincing defence, especially on issues of malfeasance and corruption.

The certificates which the prime minister has received from Amartya Sen and Nitish Kumar will be a matter of discomfort for his critics both inside and outside the Congress. To start with the latter, the Bihar chief minister’s belief that Manmohan Singh is not “responsible” for the corruption which has engulfed the Congress cannot but detract from the BJP’s single-minded pursuit of an agenda in favour of a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the scams.

2010 is ending. The year-end is the time to take stock of the outgoing year’s events. However, it should also be the time to visualise what the New Year may have in store. This piece will dwell on the likely political scenarios that may develop in Punjab and Haryana in 2011.