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New York: The global economic crisis continues to push millions of the world's most vulnerable people into poverty, hunger and early death, a new United Nations report warns, stressing that “green shoots” of recovery are not being felt by the poor in the developing world.

New York: Investing in agriculture alone will not solve the food crisis, a United Nations independent expert said, calling for stepped-up political will to address structural flaws in global food production, which is at the crux of the current emergency.

There seems to be a competition among ministries in India about setting up of an autonomous regulator for genetically modified (GM) products replacing the existing Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) which is presently functioning under the Union ministry for environment and forests. The stated design of the proposals of these ministries is to ensure safety of GM products. But unfortunately this serious issue is turning out to be like - much ado about nothing.

NEW DELHI: The decision of the national convention of central trade union organisations of all affiliations led by the INTUC, to observe a nationwide protest on October 28, 2009, to compel the Central Government to modify its anti-labour policy and practices, marks an historic development in the post-Independence labour movement.

Mamata Banerjeee is going to be a much bigger headache for the Congress. First it was suspicion, then fear and now challenge. As Trinamul Congress workers boisterously celebrate one victory after another, there is a deep sense of worry among the Congress strategists over the very existence of the party in West Bengal . For the uninitiated, this may look queer. But that is the logic of power play if the Mamata sweep gathers further momentum in the coming months.

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.