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.

UN sees slow 2010 global recovery, double-dip risk

Thursday, December 03, 2009
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations on Wednesday predicted a fragile world economic recovery next year from a two-year crisis and said the risk remained of a “double-dip” recession.

Stimulus packages deployed by many rich nations had played a large part in ending the downturn that began in 2007 and that has been widely blamed on the collapse of a global housing bubble, said a report by the UN economic division.