The UN’s trade and development body has downgraded its global economic growth projection for 2022 to 2.6% from 3.6% due to the Ukraine war and to changes in macroeconomic policies made by countries in
Food prices will remain high over the next decade even if they fall from current records, meaning millions more risk further hardship or hunger, the OECD and the UN's FAO food agency said in a report published on Thursday. Beyond stating the immediate need for humanitarian aid, the international bodies suggested wider deployment of genetically modified crops and a rethink of biofuel programmes that guzzle grain which could otherwise feed people and livestock.
Five Arctic coastal nations agreed on Wednesday to let the UN rule on conflicting territorial claims on the region's seabed, which may hold up to one fourth of the world's undiscovered hydrocarbon reserves. "We affirmed our commitment to the orderly settlement of any possible overlapping claims," US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told a news conference. Ministers from Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States met in Greenland for a two-day summit to discuss sovereignty over the Arctic Ocean seabed.
The world is failing in efforts to control an international biotechnology trade ranging from genetically modified crops to the building blocks of biological weapons, a UN University study said on Tuesday. The study said a lack of controls was "a potentially contributing factor to the spread of bioterrorism" -- the deliberate release of naturally-occurring or human-modified bacteria, viruses, toxins or other biological agents.
Myanmar state media Tuesday praised the UN's relief efforts after the cyclone that left 133,000 dead or missing, in a marked shift of tone after weeks of claiming the military could distribute aid on its own. "The United Nations and its agencies took prompt action to carry out (the) relief and rehabilitation mission with the contributions of international organisations," the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
Officials from five Arctic coastal countries will meet in Greenland this week to discuss how to carve up the Arctic Ocean, which could hold up to one-quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves. Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States are squabbling over much of the Arctic seabed and Denmark has called them together for talks in its self-governing province to avert a free-for-all for the region's resources.
The United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) is trying to convince army-ruled Myanmar not to place at least 2,000 youngsters orphaned by this month's cyclone into state-run homes, a senior official said on Monday. "We should try and place children within family environments as a priority, and not in institutions," Anne-Claire Dufay, UNICEF's child protection chief in the former Burma, told Reuters in an interview on Monday.
A devastating disaster hits a longstanding Asian dictatorship. The crisis is compounded by failed economic policies and conflicts with neighbors. The world stands ready to help, but the regime dithers and aid goes undelivered. Even information on the catastrophe is scarce thanks to a media blackout, government propaganda and denial.
The French navy has given up the idea of trying to deliver humanitarian aid directly to Myanmar and will instead divert its cargo to neighbouring Thailand, the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The statement said the UN World Food Programme would take charge of the shipment and ensure it gets to victims of Cyclone Nargis that devastated Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta earlier this month.
The World Health Organisation's member governments overcame a rich-poor rift over how to manage intellectual property on Saturday and endorsed a strategy to help developing countries access more life-saving medicines. At the United Nations agency's annual policy-setting meeting in Geneva, governments also called for WHO Director-General Margaret Chan to finalise a plan of action boosting incentives for drug makers to tackle diseases that mainly afflict the poor.
The United Nations' top climate-change official expressed concern Saturday about what Japan means by "industrial sectoral" approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and warned that the concept should not replace national targets in any new environmental treaty that would take effect when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
