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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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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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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From Philip Willan in Rome.
Photos: Nick Cornish
The reconstruction of the earthquake-ravaged Italian city of L’Aquila has been presented as a “miracle”, a triumph for the hands-on, no-messing-about style of government pioneered by Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister.
However, there are signs that the shine is coming off the miracle. Angry citizens have twice descended on Rome [...]

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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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By Gianfranco Nitti
 
ROME — On the occasion of AltaRoma 2010, Cristina Bomba has presented at her store My Mother’s Clothes, a new series of colour photographs by well known photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron.
Featuring still life images of her mother’s clothing and personal articles from the late 1950s through the 90s, My Mother’s Clothes reveals an [...]

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Fourteen paintings by Irish artist Michelle Rogers
 
 
 

 held in wake of Fastweb maelstrom
 
Rome — As many as 14 major paintings by Irish artist Michelle Rogers are being held by Italian police. The artist gallerist Massimo Micucci has been in prison since February for his business connections to Fastweb owner Silvio Scaglia and everything in his gallery has [...]

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ITALIAN CARRIER FORGES INDUSTRY’S LEADING TRANS-ATLANTIC JOINT VENTURE WITH DELTA
 
By Gianfranco Nitti
 ROME — Alitalia, Italy’s largest airline, joined the Air France-KLM Group (OTC:AFLYY) and Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) as a member of the airline industry’s leading trans-Atlantic joint venture. Launched in April 2009, the multi-party agreement created a single, coordinated network for customers flying [...]

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