Chinese President Hu Jintao on Friday went to Beichuan County of Mianyang City to visit people affected by the southwest China earthquake, encouraging them to be confident in overcoming hardships caused by the disaster. The death toll from the 7.8 magnitude quake in the Sichuan Province rose to 22,069 while 1,68,669 people were injured.
The government, civil society members and international development partners should work together to support development, pro-poor growth and poverty alleviation. This was recommended in a three-day workshop that was held in the capital from May 12 to 14. The workshop brought together officials of different ministries, development agencies and civil society members who focused on the upcoming Second National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction (NSAPR), according to a press release issued by the Royal Danish Embassy in Dhaka on May 15.
An analysis of new commercial satellite photos has identified a larger deployment of medium range nuclear missiles in Central China with the capability to attack Russia and north India including New Delhi, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has reported.
Russia, India, China and Brazil on Friday vowed to turn their four-way group into a powerful instrument for changing the world. At their first stand-alone meeting here, the Foreign Ministers institutionalised BRIC, agreeing to hold regular meetings at the level of Foreign Ministers. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee hailed BRIC as a "unique combination of mutually complementary economies' and platform to promote energy and food security, fight terrorism and reform global political and financial bodies.
Authorities ask people to be alert about 'bird flu' The authorities have appealed to the general public to apply maximum caution to prevent the entry of 'bird flu,' which has been detected in bordering Indian region. Issuing a notice, Saturday, the Department for Livestock Service has said that recently the disease has been detected in Darjeeling and Kurseong region of India, which borders with eastern Nepal. It has urged the poultry traders, farmers, and general public not to bring in birds from across the border, which the government has already banned.
Prices of key food crops will fall significantly if the global community imposes a ban on crop-based production of biofuel, one of the key factors of recent food price increase, says a Washington-based research group. The price of maize will drop by 20 per cent, cassava by 14 per cent, sugar by 11 per cent and wheat by 11 per cent by 2010 in case of such moratoriums.
Underlining India's close economic and strategic relations with Bhutan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday pledged to extend the Indian rail network into its northern neighbour. Dr. Singh made this commitment to his Bhutanese counterpart, Jigmi Y. Thinley, on the first day of a two-day visit to the country the first by an Indian Prime Minister in 15 years.
Myanmar said Friday more than 133,000 people were dead or missing in the cyclone disaster, nearly doubling the toll from the worst disaster in the country's history, which hit two weeks ago. Even as the regime again rejected calls for international aid workers to help direct the massive relief effort, state media acknowledged that the scope of the disaster had prevented confirmation of the figures. State television said 77,738 were dead and 55,917 missing
The forest authorities concerned appear to have been less serious about taking action against bird smuggling, posing a serious threat to the livestock and poultry. Law enforcers and senior forest officials raided a house, No 22, on Road 13 in Sector 7 at Uttara and seized different species of rare birds from the possession of a Pakistani citizen, Mohammad Noman Uddin, on April 17.
Children in South Asia are bearing the brunt of spiralling food prices as malnutrition is on the rise with millions at risk, the UN children's fund said. The price of rice and wheat has doubled under the worldwide pinch. Poor households are consuming one less meal or substituting expensive ingredients, David Toole, regional director of UNICEF South Asia, told a press briefing on Tuesday.
Recent official economic data reinforce the perception of a slowdown. Industrial production increased by just 3 per cent in March 2008, the lowest in six years. For the entire year 2007-08, the growth rate is estimated to be 8.13 per cent, more than 3 percentage points below the previous year's figure of 11.6 per cent. Though the Planning Commission has maintained that industrial growth being at the lower end of the anticipated band of 8-8.5 per cent was entirely exp ected, the drop in the rate has several negative connotations for the macroeconomy.
The police in Somalia stood near the corpses of lambs in Dagaari. Drought is killing livestock and destroying livelihoods. She cannot afford rice or wheat or powdered milk anymore. At the same time, a drought has decimated her family's herd of goats, turning their sole livelihood into a pile of bleached bones and papery skin. The result is that Ms. Safia, a 25-year-old mother of five, has not eaten in a week. Her 1-year-old son is starving too, an adorable, listless boy who doesn't even respond to a pinch.
Officials of the Air Intelligence Unit of the Customs at the Anna international terminal seized 235 live star tortoises from a 26 year-old Sri Lankan national bound for Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. C. Rajan, Commissioner of Customs (Airport), said the passenger, Mohamed Mohideen Mohamed Murshit, informed the authorities that a stranger gave the baggage containing the star tortoises, which he accepted for a monetary consideration. The seized tortoises were handed over to the Wildlife officials. Further investigation is on.
Hundreds of people suffered excruciating joint pains and fever to cast their vote in the chikungunya-affected twin taluks of Sullia and Puttur on Friday. The mosquito-borne disease has reached epidemic proportions in these two taluks. Government health officials who did not want to be quoted said that nearly 40 per cent of the population here might be affected from the ailment.
From getting chilled in a spa to receiving super-speciality treatment under one roof might become a reality in the near future with a mega health project proposed on the city outskirts. Dubbed
Japanese could face a future eating only rice and potatoes with no meat because of growing global food shortages and an alarmingly low rate of food self-sufficiency, a government report said Friday. About 60% of food consumed in Japan is imported from countries such as the United States, China, Australia and Canada. If the global food crisis intensifies and results in a lower availability of food imports, Japanese would see a dramatic shift in their diets, the Agriculture Ministry white paper warned.
Delay on the part of State governments to pick up their allocation for the Mid-Day Meal programme in April has cost them dear. As per a directive of the Union Food Ministry, the allocation for the first month of this fiscal has lapsed; a decision that has not gone down too well with the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry. While HRD Ministry appreciates the rationale in the Food Ministry's contention that there should not be any retrospective lifting of foodgrains, it is of the view that the decision should not be forced upon States without a warning.
All schools across the country will have toilet facilities by the year end, Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said on Thursday. While Sikkim, Puducherry, Mizoram and Haryana have already achieved this target, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan will do so by July. The remaining States that include Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Punjab, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand will be able to cover all schools by November.
A lawsuit was filed Friday by 178 people demanding
The criticism of the government of Tamil Nadu's tsunami relief and rehabilitation programme (April 19, 2008) does not accurately reflect the situation on the ground and the progress made.
