Despite a wide range of tools available to the United Nations in the areas of preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace building, a new United Nations calls for measures to boost the world body's capacity to prevent conflicts.
International health agencies say the world is on the brink of a cancer epidemic. The World Health Organization reports 7.6 million people died of the disease in 2005. It predicts the number of cancer deaths and new cases of the disease will rise astronomically in the coming years, unless action is taken now to reverse smoking trends and provide treatment to patients in developing countries.
Ben S. Bernanke's decision to lower interest rates 1.25 percentage points last month will end the dollar's two-year slide, according to the world's biggest currency traders.
It had always been technically difficult to harvest the abundant valuable krill known to populate the ocean waters around Antarctica and preserve their quality in the process. In recently breaking in a new trawling technology, however, Norwegian company Aker Biomarine ASA has made the feat suddenly possible.
Transparency International (TI) and a broad civil society anti-corruption coalition have labelled as a major setback the failure of the Bali international corruption conference to agree on how to independently assess country progress in implementing the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).
England's goalkeeper Peter Shilton has branded Diego Maradona's apology for his sly Hand of God goal in the 1986 World Cup as too little, too late.
A submarine cable in the Middle East has been snapped, adding to global net problems caused by breaks in two lines under the Mediterranean on Wednesday, reports the BBC.
China has teamed up with US aluminum giant Alcoa to buy a 12% stake in Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto for 14 billion US dollars. The state-owned Aluminum Corp of China (Chinalco) said the purchase was the largest Chinese investment overseas.
With forecasts of more snow and ice, chaos in the transport and energy systems that has left millions stranded or without electricity and water, Chinese authorities are desperately trying to convince people the situation is under control.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, left its oil production ceiling unchanged on Friday ignoring United States demands for an increase. The cartel insisted that the market remained well supplied and seemed to focus on supporting prices which have fallen 10% since the beginning of the year.