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New York: The world's largest investors - collectively managing over $13 trillion in assets - have issued a United Nations-backed call for concrete action in the fight against climate change.

Exactly one year after the Lehman Brothers' collapse on September 15, 2008, triggering a global financial meltdown, which precipitated a prolonged recession for the major advanced economies, policy-makers and markets see signs that the worst may be over and forecast a weak recovery well into 2010. Swift and coordinated actions by central banks and massive fiscal stimulus injected by Governments all over have helped to rescue the world economy from an abyss.

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee may be less bullish about the pace of economic recovery, but the stock and commodity markets are shooting up again defying all logic. The Finance Minister strongly feels that the fiscal stimulus measures have to be continued as the economy is 'just beginning to come out of the woods.' Mukherjee is careful. He knows what he is talking about. He is not carried away by the latest surge of the stock indices and the firm trend in commodity futures.

New York: A United Nations human rights expert has called for an independent probe into the authenticity of a video of alleged extrajudicial executions by Sri Lankan soldiers, stating that the investigations carried out so far have not been impartial.

“The private sector has a lot to lose from corruption, and has considerable leverage to stop it,” UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said at the launch of the first-ever report on top global companies' anti-corruption measures in Geneva.

New York:Refuting a recent media report, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today reiterated that the body has no concrete proof that Iran has or has ever had a nuclear weapons programme.

New York: The head of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has stressed that the tragic deaths of a 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride and her baby after three days in labour underscores the urgent need to better protect girls against early marriage.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - Ministers from the six nations sharing the Mekong River have agreed to expedite the development of three priority economic corridors in the region: the East-West, North-South and Southern economic corridors.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with a view to revitalize the ailing global economy and to ensure food security, has advocated involvement of transnational corporations (TNCs) in agriculture and food and beverage sectors both, particularly in developing countries, in the form of FDIs and non-equity participation.

Is India ready to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games? The event is scheduled to be held in the national Capital between October 3 and 14, 2010. Stakes are indeed high considering that India will be the third developing country to host the prestigious event after Jamaica in 1966 and Malaysia in 1988.