There are now one billion hungry people on the globe, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said recently. A statistic that is shameful and shocking at the same time. The global financial crisis too has led to a dramatic rise in hunger across the world. Ban warned that the food crisis is a wake-up call for tomorrow since by 2050 the planet's population will be 9.1 billion people, over two billion more...

The President of International Fund for Agricultural Development stresses that access to funds for developing countries will help them make ethical decisions in the quest for food security. Just days before the UN Climate Change summit at Copenhagen, Kanayo Nwanze, President of IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), stresses that access to funds for developing countries will help them make ethical decisions in the quest for food security. Nwanze was...

India on Sunday said there was no question of taking any binding carbon emission cuts, indicating the coordinated approach major emerging economies including Beijing and New Delhi are likely to adopt at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, which is just a week away. “There cannot be any emission cuts... that is what we have said and also something the developed countries have said... they [industrialised nations] don’t expect countries like...

The momentum for a deal at next month's United Nations climate change summit is strong and growing, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, urging world leaders to make the extra push to achieve a firm foundation for a legally binding treaty as early as possible in 2010. “My message to you today is simple: stay focused, stay committed, come to Copenhagen, and seal a deal,” Mr. Ban said in a keynote...

Twenty-five years ago this week, a gas leak at a Union Carbide chemicals plant in Bhopal released 40 tonnes of poisonous gases over the Indian city, killing thousands and injuring tens of thousands. To this day, many of the survivors live in crowded shacks in the slums that line the old factory walls. The people here are not the only ones who have been affected, however. The leak, which is often...