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The first head of the new United Nations super-agency on female empowerment "UN Women" voiced hope talking to the journalists on Wednesday that the body will be a “strong champion” of gender equality and hasten existing UN efforts to advance the cause of women and girls. The UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women was established on 2 July 2010 by an unanimous vote of the General Assembly to oversee all of the world body’s programmes aimed at promoting women’s rights and their full participation in global affairs. Known as UN Women, it will help Member States implement standards, provide technical and financial support to countries which request it, and forge partnerships with civil society. Within the UN, it will hold the world body accountable for its own commitments on gender equality. Michelle Bachelet, former Chilean president and head of UN Women, told reporters in New York on 22nd September 2010 that the body’s creation is “clearly a huge opportun

A rescue package similar to that introduced after the global financial crisis is urgently needed to halt the worldwide loss of biodiversity, which is resulting in a heavy human cost, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed talking at a high level UN meeting on Wednesday. “We are bankrupting our natural economy,” he told a high-level General Assembly event on biodiversity, held at United Nations Headquarters in New York. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), ecosystems – and the biodiversity that underpins them – generate services worth trillions of dollars, supporting livelihoods around the world. Characterizing ecosystems as “our natural capital,” Mr. Ban stressed that a loss of biodiversity can lead to the failure of crops, a drop in profits, a deepening of poverty and economic decline. “Allowing [our natural infrastructure] to decline is like throwing money out of the window,” he said. According to the UN, the world will not meet the 2010 target to slow the decline i

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has opened the annual UN General Assembly summit  with a plea to the presidents, prime ministers and kings to use their power to meet UN goals to help the world's poorest by 2015. Ten years after world leaders set the most ambitious goals ever to fight & check global poverty, they gathered again on Monday to spur action to meet the deadline - which the UN says will be difficult, if not impossible, in some cases. For centuries, the plight of the world's poor had been ignored but with the turn of the new millennium, leaders pledged to begin tackling poverty, disease, ignorance and inequality. Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, made an impassioned plea to developed countries to join his country in raising its contribution to meet the millennium goals. France, he said, would increase its contribution by 20 per cent over the next three years. "We have no right to do less than what we have decided to do," Sarkozy told the

The ruling Moderate Party of Sweden could draw a double  support of voters to its government  in the parliamentary election of the country held on Sunday. The electoral result shows the party achieved  30 percent voter's support in the election which is just double of 15 per cent gained in 2002. "I have been clear ... We will not co-operate with or be made dependent on the Sweden Democrats," Fredrik Reinfeldt, the prime minister and leader of the ruling centre-right coalition, said after winning 172 seats in the 349-seat parliament, just three short of a majority. "We have received broad support tonight," he added. But he said it was "not the election result we had hoped for". An anti-immigration party in Sweden also managed their first win of seats in parliament election of the country signing that far-right parties are gaining some public support in Europe. The Sweden Democrats (SD), who have described Islam as the country's biggest forei

"We demand Japan return the Chinese captain unconditionally and immediately. If Japan continues to take the wrong course, China will take strong counter-measures and Japan will have to take all the consequences", Chinese foreign ministry statement said. China had warned it would be taking "strong measures" against Japan after a court in Okinawa, southern Japan, said the sailor could be held for a further 10 days. China has closed top-level exchanges with Japan in a row over the detention of a Chinese ship captain following a collision near disputed islands. The disputed islands are known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Chinese state media said ministerial and provincial-level contacts had been suspended, including talks on aviation and coal. Earlier, a Japanese court extended the detention of the captain, held after the collision in the East China Sea. A foreign ministry statement read out on Chinese state television said the decision had "serious

The Free and Fair Election Foundation (FEF) of Afghanistan termed the outlook of the Saturday's parliamentary election as "extensive irregularities" and urged the IEC "to ensure the integrity of the rest of the electoral process". Some of the monitoring groups also raised serious concerns about electoral fraud. The FEF's Nader Nadery told the BBC it was to be welcomed that more people had voted than expected and that casualties from attacks were lower than anticipated. But he said there were many problems with the indelible ink used to stop multiple voting, with proxy votes, interference by local power brokers and with a large amount of intimidation. Meanwhile, the bodies of three members of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) kidnapped in Balkh province during voting on Saturday have been recovered. Taliban militants had vowed to disrupt the vote for the lower houses of parliament. The discovery of the bodies means at least 17 peopl

At least 10 people were killed in Afghanistan during election to the parliament of the country on Saturday. Taliban unleashed country wide attacks to disrupt a poll that is testing the credibility of the government and security forces. Voters appeared hesitant to go to polling stations after a series of rocket strikes across the country. In the worst attack, police said the Taliban killed one Afghan soldier and six pro-government militiamen in a raid on a security outpost next to a polling station in northern Baghlan province. Glenn Cowan, co-founder of U.S.-based observers Democracy International, said turnout felt "about the same" as 2009, when about 4 million Afghans cast valid votes. "It was about the same pace this time," he said an hour before polls were due to close. The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, an independent watchdog, estimated last year's turnout at around 35 percent. There are 11.4 million eligible voters this time. Signi