COOPERATION: Aid Should Ease Poverty, Not Serve Special Interests

A high ranking U.N. official has criticised the tendency of industrialised countries to grant development aid only to nations in which they have clear political and military interests.

COOPERATION: Aid Should Ease Poverty, Not Serve Special Interests

A high ranking U.N. official has criticised the tendency of industrialised countries to grant development aid only to nations in which they have clear political and military interests.

HEALTH: UN Launches Study on Product Designed to Prevent AIDS

A United Nations programme has launched a study on an anti-bacterial product for vaginal use that could prevent the heterosexual transmission of the Human Immuno- Deficiency Virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

HEALTH: Schistosomiasis, Plague of Rural Poor Moves to Cities

More than 200 million people worldwide suffer from schistosomiasis, the parasitic disease that is second only to malaria in terms of its socioeconomic and public health impact in tropical and subtropical regions.

EDUCATION: Adjustment is sapping Education, says ILO

Structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) have a negative effect on education, especially in developing countries, according to a study commissioned by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

ENVIRONMENT: New U.N. Agency To Fight Desertification

More than 110 countries have areas threatened by drought or the encroaching desert; the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that desertification costs the world some 42 billion dollars each year.

POPULATION: Hostility And Danger Faced By Migrants Worldwide

The growing problem of racially-motivated violence against migrants especially plagues Europe, where dozens of innocent victims have fallen prey to murderous gangs, yet around the world the migrant is vulnerable to abuse, injustice and threat.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Vaccinated under Fire

In an emergency health operation carried out while civil war raged, the World Health Organisation vaccinated almost one million people in Liberia to check an outbreak of yellow fever.

ASIA: Dual discrimination hits women who also happen to be migrants

The century is being seen out as it began, with the displacement of wave after wave of migrants -- but with a difference. This time it is women, especially in Asia, who constitute the fastest growing group of all the people on the move today.

ASIA-WOMEN: New Wave of Migrants in Double Trouble

The century is being seen out as it began, with the displacement of wave after wave of migrants -- but with a difference. This time it is women, especially in Asia, who constitute the fastest growing group.

HEALTH: Poverty and War Increasing Number of Handicapped

The number of handicapped people in the world is increasing even as society reduces prevention and rehabilittion programmes, according to activists in the Handicapped Persons Movement.

HEALTH: Poverty and War Increase Number of Handicapped

The number of handicapped people in the world is increasing even as society reduces prevention and rehabilittion programmes, according to activists in the Handicapped Persons Movement.

AFRICA-ECONOMY: Poles of Development

The economic take-off of Africa could be launched from four industrial development poles - South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and the Ivory Coast - with a strategy which would not exclude policies fostering national industries.

DEVELOPMENT: Information Haves and Have Nots

The dizzy rate of expansion in the information revolution has seen the market for associated technology expand from 745 billion dollars in 1985 to two trillion dollars a decade later.

SWITZERLAND-ECONOMY: Bleak Outlook for Swiss

Hopes of economic growth have been dashed by latest indicators which rounded out a bleak year for Switzerland.

SWITZERLAND-ECONOMY: Bleak Outlook for Swiss

Hopes of economic growth have been dashed by latest indicators which rounded out a bleak year for Switzerland.