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New York: General elections in the Central African Republic (CAR) next year will be a crucial step towards restoring stability to the country through a democratic process, but the polls must be free, fair and transparent, the United Nations envoy to the African nation told the Security Council today.

New York: Representatives from more than 60 countries gathered in Rome today for a United Nations-backed meeting to promote the international treaty considered essential for the conservation and use of the world’s threatened plant genetic resources.

New York: Stressing the impartiality of the United Nations in certifying Côte d’Ivoire’s presidential elections, the world body’s top envoy in the divided country said today there is absolutely no doubt that the opposition leader won despite the outgoing president’s claim to the contrary.

President Barack Obama may have gambled somewhat on his re-election in 2012 with the deal he has struck with Republicans over a two-year extension of Bush tax cuts, leaving his Democrats fuming over surrender to “legislative blackmail” of their rivals, who won the midterm elections in November. Republican threats to hold up all business until the tax cuts were extended for the rich as well as the middle class, have paid off – how political observers in Washington see it - and they have a victory even before taking control of Congress in January 2011.

LUCKNOW: The home-coming of Mohd Azam Khan, MLA from Rampur for Samajwadi Party (SP), after a gap of 18 months, has boosted the moral of party leaders and workers.

New York: The United Nations environment chief is calling for the urgent development of adaptation strategies ranging from urban planning to improved water storage in the face of intensified rain fall and glacier shrinkage that threaten the food security and livelihoods of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people.

New York: Countries in the Near East have become increasingly dependent on food imports as their rapid population growth has outpaced agricultural production, a senior United Nations official said today, stressing the need to boost investment in farming in the region.

New York: The United Nations health agency is set to develop the first-ever global information standards for traditional medicine, which is a primary source of health care for many people in parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America and is increasingly being used in Europe and North America.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has made history in Bihar by leading his Janata Dal (United)-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition to an overwhelming electoral victory and winning 206 of the 243 Assembly seats. The landslide has reduced Mr Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal to a poor 22 seats, his partner Ram Bilas Paswan’s Lok Janashakti Party to just 3 seats, and the Congress to a pathetic 4 seats, its lowest-ever Bihar score. Bihar has no official Opposition because none has won one-tenth of the Assembly seats. The results have important implications for national political trends.

When the NDA has virtually convinced itself that it has more than a fair chance of success in the next general election, it will be salutary to remember that the difference in the voting percentages of the JD(U)-BJP alliance and its three main opponents taken together – the RJD, the LJP and the Congress – is only four per cent. Lalu Yadav was not whistling in the dark, therefore, when he said after the results were declared that it was too early to write off the RJD.