By Gianfranco Nitti
 
ROME — Severe flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains has affected an estimated 15.4 million people (including at least 7.5 million children) across Pakistan. The floods have damaged standing crops as well as stored grain and seeds for planting, and destroyed or damaged an estimated 900,000 homes.
A number of programmes and projects funded [...]

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Human trafficking under Finnish flag
 
By Gianfranco Nitti
 
ROME — And once again onboard a yacht. The one that was intercepted Tuesday by the Guardia di Finanza (Finance Police) was making the 28th such trip by luxury vessels carrying illegal immigrants from Asia Minor to the province of Lecce, Apulia region, Southern Italy in 2010.
A total [...]

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Scientists around the world are working together to improve the conservation and use of crop genetic resources, including those of neglected species such as breadfruit.
Rome, - The breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is a typical example of a highly nutritive species whose versatile applications are still largely untapped by the market.
Breadfruit is a multipurpose agro-forestry tree [...]

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 By Paola Rolletta*

I feel neither more “good” nor more “patient”. I am a hard-headed woman, as always. Attached to life, as ever!
 The day when my friend Pigi, my oncologist, told me that I had breast cancer, I cried desperately. The first thing I did was to phone my partner to tell him this piece of [...]

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Q: “I recently renewed my contract with the United Nations in Rome. I have been working for 4 years and have signed another 2 year extension. I am worried about my pension benefits as I understand that the UN pension does not provide me with any retirement income until I have worked there for 5 [...]

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 Lady Carla Powell

 
 
By EDWARD PENTIN
 
 
 VATICAN CITY — The new British Government appears to be having difficulty choosing a Catholic successor to Francis Campbell as its next ambassador to the Holy See, diplomatic sources in the Eternal City say. Speculation over who might be appointed now is raging over a constellation of worthy celebrity figures know [...]

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Letter from Tashkent
 
Predatory policemen plague travellers, Christians and health workers in Uzbekistan as Islam Karimov retains his grip on the Central Asian nation, Shelly Kittleson reports.
 
TASHKENT– On arrival at this central Asian capital’s infernal airport a distinct lack of order prevails. A battle to get one’s passport checked soon slips into little more than a [...]

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Kanayo F. Nwanze. Photo: IFAD.

 
 By JAN FILIPOWICZ
 
ROME – Felix Kanayo Nwanze, the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), has exhorted staff to believe passionately in their mission and has cautioned that agency employees who treat their work as just a job will effectively be “mercenaries.”
Mr Nwanze, a native of OPEC-member Nigeria, was [...]

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By Gianfranco Nitti
 
ROME — With the goal of reducing poverty and vulnerability of women and men in hill and mountain areas in Nepal, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) signed a new loan agreement of US$7.6 million as well as a grant agreement of $7.6 million.
The loan agreement was signed in Kathmandu by Lal [...]

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By Insider reporters

LONDON — Britain’s Defence and Foreign Secretaries met Thursday with their Italian counterparts at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and discussed the ongoing working relationship of the two nations as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, officials said. Italy together with France will be the fourth largest contributor to [...]

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