UN starts wheat aid to 500,000 Pakistani farmers

Some 2.4 million hectares of farmland were damaged by the floods, UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation stated. – AFP (File Photo)

ROME: The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said it had begun large-scale distribution of wheat seed in Pakistan to 500,000 farming families affected by catastrophic floods earlier this year.

The aid means the current planting season that ends in December will still take place, the FAO said in a statement, adding that it would also provide vegetable seeds and fertilizer and assist livestock farmers.

Pakistan re-elected to UN Economic & Social Council

Already on the 54-member council, Pakistan received 149 in the 192-member UN General Assembly to serve another term. — File Photo

UNITED NATIONS: For the third time in a row, Pakistan was re-elected Monday to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the economic arm of the United Nations, for a three-year term, beginning 1 January 2011.

Already on the 54-member council, Pakistan received 149 in the 192-member UN General Assembly to serve another term.

Pakistan urges UN to keep focusing on flood devastation

Mian Jehangir Iqbal said Pakistan's needs were enormous and hoped that the international community would provide assistance in a big way as Pakistan goes ahead with the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase. — File Photo

UNITED NATIONS: A Pakistani delegate Wednesday urged United Nations' machinery to keep up its “great work” in creating awareness among member states about the massive destruction wrought by floods in Pakistan that required global help for recovery.

Speaking in the General Assembly's Fourth Committee, which deals with special political and decolonization questions, Mian Jehangir Iqbal, press counselor at the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations, thanked the UN Department of Pubic Information (DPI) for the extensive coverage given to the disaster that led to timely international aid for the millions of displaced persons.