Poverty & Hunger

31.01.2006 International agency Oxfam has said that rich countries must change their attitude to world trade negotiations and show leadership to deliver reforms that lift people out of poverty. It wants the EU and US to stop making excuses for not reforming agricultural trade rules and to end their unreasonable demands for developing countries to open industry and services markets.

30.01.2006 That the first, second and third worlds coexist within India has long been known. A new academic report corroborates this but also speaks of a 'fourth world' left behind in this country of a billion people, that aspires to be a global leader. The country's first ever ‘Social Development Report' warns that, since the economy was liberalised 15 years ago, disparities and inequalities have sharpened and regional imbalances widened to a point where social instability has become a serious threat.

30.01.2006 Environmental activist Medha Patkar has asked Left parties to take a firm position against the machinations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monitory Fund (IMF), World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) whose funding programmes "are aimed at changing our priorities and culture.''

27.01.2006 With mounting criticism of Greenpeace's opposition to arrival of French ship Clemenceau to Indian ship-breaking yard Alang, the organisation seems to have modified its stand on the industry. Read this press release by Greenpeace.

24.01.2006 The number of people unemployed worldwide climbed to new heights in 2005, as robust economic growth failed to offset an increase in people seeking work – especially among the vast and growing legion of jobless youth, the International Labour Office (ILO) said in its annual Global Employment Trends released today.

24.01.2006 A blueprint for international engagement in the development of Afghanistan over the next five years had been finalized, the United Nations Assistance Mission in the country (UNAMA) announced today. The Afghanistan Compact, to be launched at a conference in London from 31 January to 1 February, covers efforts in security, governance, human rights, the rule of law, development and counter-narcotics.

24.01.2006 Senior members of the Communist Party of India, along with Pakistani-born British writer and filmmaker Tariq Ali, will lead anti-US protests, labelled Anti-Imperialist Day, in New Delhi on Tuesday. The aim is to mobilise public opinion to demand withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, oppose military action against Iran, North Korea and Syria and express solidarity with the Palestinian people.

24.01.2006 A new World Bank report released today warns that fragmentation of foreign assistance may adversely affect the accountability and capacity of the Government of Afghanistan.

22.01.2006 UNICEF is working with local organisations in quake-hit regions of Pakistan and is sending female healthcare teams to rural areas to meet the healthcare needs of the people. These healthcare teams have been specially trained in Islamabad.

21.01.2006 Thousands of lives and billions of dollars lost in the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 could have been saved if disaster reduction strategies had been in place, United Nations tsunami envoy former United States President Bill Clinton said today, highlighting the urgent need to implement these measures.

21.01.2006 Environmentalists may be up in arms but many people in Alang are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the discarded and controversial French warship Clemenceau - for their bread and butter. Alang has for long been a booming graveyard of ships from the world over, a place where vessels are ripped apart for every little particle that will fetch money as scrap.

20.01.2006 Winter relief operations in northern Pakistan have been hampered by bad weather - snow, ice and landslides - which pose a challenge to army and NGOs. The October earthquake had killed 86,000 and left more than 3 million homeless, who now have to be provided drugs and shelter supplies.

19.01.2006 The high death toll in 2005 from tsunamis, hurricanes, typhoons, mudslides, earthquakes, volcanoes, locusts and pandemics can not necessarily be blamed on "natural" disaster, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) which pointed to a complex mix of human and natural factors that led to tragedy in those events.

18.01.2006 The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture – sometimes called the ‘seed treaty’ – was adopted by UN Food and Agriculture (FAO) member states in 2001 and came into force in 2004. Governments that signed on are now working out implementation details. Far from its roots in the struggle to assert farmers’ rights as a counterforce to breeders’ rights, the Treaty has ended up being mainly about granting new privileges to industry. It will give seed companies free access to most of the world’s public genebanks without any obligation to share their own materials in return.

18.01.2006 After being grounded for three days, the UN on Wednesday resumed airborne relief operation in Pakistan's earthquake-hit areas where people are braving a cold snap in the harsh Himalayan winter.