London: World leaders on Saturday signed a global agreement to fight malnutrition in children and made commitments of up to USD 4.15 billion to tackle the global menace. The participants, who signed a Global Nutrition for Growth Compact, committed their countries and organisations to reduce the number of children under five who are stunted by an additional 20 million in developing countries like India by 2020.
Stunting affects around 165 million children worldwide and nearly 50 per cent of children in India. The World Health Assembly recently agreed a new global target of a 40 per cent reduction in the number of stunted children by 2025. Hosted by Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, the central London summit saw the participation of two presidents and four prime ministers from Africa, philanthropist Bill Gates, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Unilever chief executive Paul Polman, the Guardian reported.
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12:06 AM, Jun 09, 2013
New York: Bill Gates and Kofi Annan are among several prominent businessmen and humanitarians asking a US judge to show fairness when he sentences former Goldman Sachs Group Inc board member Rajat Gupta for his insider trading conviction later in October. Gupta, 63, the most influential and best-known corporate figure to be caught in a broad insider trading crackdown of the last four years, moved in elite business and philanthropic...
06:32 PM, Oct 13, 2012
New York: Bill Gates and Kofi Annan are among several prominent businessmen and humanitarians asking a US judge to show fairness when he sentences former Goldman Sachs Group Inc board member Rajat Gupta for his insider trading conviction later this month. Gupta, 63, the most influential and best-known corporate figure to be caught in a broad insider trading crackdown of the last four years, moved in elite business and philanthropic...
09:48 AM, Oct 13, 2012
Beirut: Amateur video posted on YouTube on Monday showed images of 20 dead Syrian soldiers, blindfolded and handcuffed, after they were apparently executed in the northern city of Aleppo. Two videos showed the dead men dressed in Army fatigues and kneeling in a long line along a road with their bloodied heads lying on the pavement. It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the videos. Rami Abdulrahman, head...
09:41 AM, Sep 11, 2012
United Nations: The United Nations on Friday confirmed that veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi will replace former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the international mediator on Syria as the 17-month-old conflict slides deeper into civil war. "The Secretary-General appreciates Brahimi's willingness to bring his considerable talents and experience to this crucial task for which he will need, and rightly expects, the strong, clear and unified support of the international community,...
08:36 AM, Aug 18, 2012
As Syria continues to be in a state of civil war, stories of tragedy and despair are emerging from its cities. ...
09:09 AM, Aug 13, 2012
Aleppo: Syrian forces stormed the last rebel stronghold in the capital Damascus in tanks and armoured vehicles on Friday and blasted artillery at rebels in Aleppo, where the United Nations said the army was preparing a massive assault. The violence came within hours of former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan quitting as international peace envoy for Syria, underlining the impotence of mediation efforts in the 17-month-old uprising against President Bashar...
11:19 AM, Aug 04, 2012
b>Washington: The US has blamed Kofi Annan's resignation as special UN envoy to Syria on the failure of Russia and China to back his peace plan for the end of 17-month conflict in that country. "Annan's resignation highlights the failure at the United Nations Security Council of Russia and China to support meaningful resolutions against Assad that would have held Assad accountable for his failure to abide by his commitments...
11:10 AM, Aug 03, 2012
Geneva: Kofi Annan said on Thursday he will quit his high-profile role as special envoy to Syria at the end of the month, delivering blistering criticism of world powers' failure to unite to stop the country's escalating violence. Annan told reporters that when he accepted the job, "which some called `Mission Impossible'" - he wanted to help the international community, led by the UN Security Council, find a peaceful solution...
10:56 PM, Aug 02, 2012
Aleppo: Helicopter gunships opened fire over Aleppo on Sunday and the thud of artillery boomed across neighbourhoods as government forces and rebels fought for control of Syria's second city. Opposition activists reported clashes in several rebel-held districts in the morning in what could herald the start of a decisive phase in the battle for Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub. International peace envoy Kofi Annan and other foreign leaders said the situation...
06:08 PM, Jul 29, 2012
United Nations: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and international envoy Kofi Annan increased pressure on the divided UN Security Council on Friday, urging that it demand a halt to the escalating violence in Syria and promising "consequences" if the conflict doesn't end. The UN chief and the joint UN-Arab League envoy to Syria renewed their appeals for action following Thursday's attack on a poor farming village in Hama province, which rebels claim...
08:45 AM, Jul 14, 2012
Geneva: World powers struck an agreement that a transitional government should be set up in Syria to end the conflict there but they remained at odds over what part President Bashar al Assad might play in the process. Peace envoy Kofi Annan said after the talks in Geneva on Saturday the government should include members of Assad's administration and the Syrian opposition and that it should arrange free elections. "Time...
10:22 AM, Jul 01, 2012
Beirut: United Nations observers monitoring the turmoil in Syria suspended operations on Saturday in response to escalating violence which threatens to kill off a tattered peace plan brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan. Chief monitor General Robert Mood said the fighting posed a threat to his unarmed observers, one of whose patrols was fired upon four days ago, and prevented them from carrying out their mandate to oversee Annan's widely...
10:30 PM, Jun 16, 2012
New York: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned the Security Council on Thursday that a full-blown civil war in Syria was "imminent," while international mediator Kofi Annan said it was time to step up the pressure on Damascus to halt the violence. The Syrian opposition and Western and Gulf nations seeking President Bashar al-Assad's ouster increasingly see Annan's six-point peace plan as doomed because of Syria's consistent use of military force...
06:00 PM, Jun 08, 2012
Beirut/United Nations: UN monitors came under fire on Thursday while trying to investigate reports of a new massacre that raised the pressure on world powers struggling to halt the carnage in Syria, where a UN-Arab League peace plan has all but collapsed. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described as "unspeakable barbarity" the reported killing of at least 78 villagers by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Speaking at a special...
03:31 AM, Jun 08, 2012
Doha: International envoy Kofi Annan on Saturday criticised President Bashar al-Assad for failing to comply with a peace plan to end the Syria conflict and said his forces were carrying out atrocities, arbitrary arrests and other abuses regardless of the world outcry against him. At a meeting with members of the Arab League, Annan gave a bleak assessment of the situation in Syria 15 months on from the start of...
03:21 AM, Jun 03, 2012
Beirut: Peace envoy Kofi Annan said on Friday he was "frustrated and impatient" a week after a massacre in Syria of 108 people shocked the world, and there were signs Russia might be moving closer to the West's position on tackling the crisis. President Vladimir Putin denied that Russia, which has a base in Syria and supplies it with weapons, was providing the government with the means to crush rebels,...
01:45 AM, Jun 02, 2012
Amman: President Bashar al-Assad faces renewed international pressure to end the bloodshed in Syria but, with peace envoy Kofi Annan visiting Damascus, his government blamed Islamist militants for a massacre in which UN observers had implicated his army. Annan, on a mission from the United Nations and Arab League, is scheduled to meet Assad on Tuesday, when he can be expected to urge compliance with the tattered ceasefire deal which...
04:01 AM, May 29, 2012
Beirut: Syrian forces fired mortar shells into a farming village on Tuesday, killing 10 people, among them two young children, and sending panicked residents running for cover, activists said. UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous deplored the ongoing violence and promised to put 300 observers in Syria by the end of the month, up from the 24 in place now, in hopes of calming the situation. "The level of violence in...
03:12 AM, May 02, 2012
Beirut: Syrian state media said on Thursday that anti-regime bomb-makers accidentally set off blasts a day earlier that flattened parts of a residential area in the central city of Hama and killed at least 16 people. Syrian activists gave a different account, however, and blamed intense shelling by the regime. It was impossible to independently verify the conflicting accounts because President Bashar Assad's regime, facing a 13-month-old uprising, has restricted...
07:22 PM, Apr 26, 2012
