A new United Nations report showing significant progress in improving access to HIV/AIDS services in 37 developing countries offers realistic hope for the achievement of universal access, a UN official responsible for battling the pandemic said today. Towards Universal Access, produced by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and released today, assesses progress in 144 low- and...

Global foodgrain prices are likely to remain high in the coming months despite high output estimates this season. Bad weather in Brazil and Russia and rising global demand have made the grain market sensitive. The assessment of the damage due to dry weather in Russia, Western Australia and South America and floods in India, China and Pakistan is yet to be done. This is offering grain traders speculative opportunity on futures...

In ten years, the living conditions of the poor have been improving—but not necessarily because of the UN’s goals EVEN at 70, Jiyem, an Indonesian grandmother, gets up in the small hours to cook and collect firewood for her impoverished household. Her three-year-old grandson is malnourished. Nobody in her family has ever finished primary school. Her ramshackle house lacks electricity; the toilet is a hole in the ground; the family...

A decline in pollinating insects in India is resulting in reduced vegetable yields and could limit people's access to a nutritional diet, a study warns. Indian researchers said there was a "clear indication" that pollinator abundance was linked to productivity. They added that the loss of the natural service could have a long-term impact on the farming sector, which accounts for almost a fifth of the nation's GDP. Globally, pollination is estimated to...

Trade unions and labour rights activists blame the high suicide rate in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, on the practices of the garment industry. TIRUPUR has carved out a niche for itself in the world of garments. Its phenomenal growth in the highly competitive global scenario, particularly in the past two decades, has been made possible by the entrepreneurial spirit of its manufacturers and exporters and the sweat and labour of thousands of...