Leaders from the Group of Eight industrial powers will agree to establish a task force at their summit next month to tackle the world food crisis, a report said on Monday. The group will aim to address the immediate problem of food shortages in poorer countries as well as address longer-term challenges such as boosting food production, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, citing unnamed government sources. The working group is also expected to discuss removal of export restrictions and directing global food stockpiles to those most in need, the daily said.

New data from Greenland shows that the UN's dire warnings on global warming may be vastly understated-------

Thousands of villagers armed with sticks and machetes beat to death a Royal Bengal tiger Saturday after it had killed three people at Shyamnagar upazila in Satkhira, the police said. The critically endangered animal, one of about 600 in Sundarban, the world's largest mangrove forest, was lassoed after entering a village and killing three people Friday night, police official Abdur Razzak said.

Climate change is fuelling conflicts around the world and helping to drive the number of people forced out of their homes to new highs, the head of the UN's refugee agency said on Monday, reports The Guardian After a few years of improvement, thanks mainly to large-scale resettlement in Afghanistan, the numbers of civilians uprooted by conflict is again rising. During 2007 the total jumped to 37.4 million, an increase of more than 3 million, according to statistics published Tuesday.

The number of refugees fleeing to other countries to escape conflict and persecution rose in 2007 for the second year as factors from climate change to over scarce resources threatened to increase the flow, the United Nations refugee agency warned Tuesday. A total of 11.4 million refugees were under the care of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2007, including some 400,000 feeling conflict in their home countries, the agency said. The report for 2006 numbered 9.9 million.

The number of refugees crossing borders to escape conflict and persecution increased last year, and threatens to continue to grow because of factors like climate change and scarce resources, the United Nations refugee agency warned Tuesday. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees oversaw the care of 11.4 million refugees in 2007, including about 400,000 people who were enduring conflict in their own countries, the agency said. The total was 9.9 million people in 2006.

Some 330 babies of less than one month of age die in the country everyday while eight million or 48 per cent of the children below five years are underweight. This is the state of child survival in Bangladesh as revealed in a global report launched by UNICEF, which still says Bangladesh is on track to attain the target-4 of the UN Millennium Development Goals for reducing under-five mortality rate to 50 per thousand by 2015 from current rate of 65.

Xan Rice Nairobi: Ethiopia has appealed for $325 million in aid after drought and crop failure more than doubled the number of people needing emergency assistance to 4.6 million. Poor rains have affected much of southern and south-eastern Ethiopia since last year, significantly cutting harvests. The shortage of local cereals has sent prices soaring, while the cost of imported food has also risen sharply because of the global food crisis and increased fuel prices.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called for an end to discrimination against people carrying the AIDS virus, including travel restrictions imposed on them by some countries. "I call for a change in laws that uphold stigma and discrimination, including restrictions on travel for people living with HIV," he said at the opening of a two-day, high-level meeting in the General Assembly on UN targets set in 2001 to roll back the disease worldwide.