With peace talks between authorities in separatist Abkhazia and the Government of Georgia at a near standstill, the Security Council today unanimously extended the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) until the end of January 2005 to maintain stability along the ceasefire lines.
A former Bosnian Croat general who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for taking part in a massacre of Muslim villagers in the early 1990s will be set free next week after the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today quashed nearly all of his convictions.
In a bid to boost forestry, food security and agricultural biodiversity in the world’s poorest countries, the Netherlands has pledged €20 million (euros) over the next four years to a new initiative undertaken by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Rome-based agency announced today.
The United Nations refugee agency expressed concern today over proposed changes to Switzerland’s asylum laws, warning they may breach international conventions at a time when the number of asylum-seekers across Europe has fallen rapidly.
The iconic Old Bridge of Mostar, which for centuries was among the most famous sites in the Balkans before being destroyed in 1993 in the war that engulfed the former Yugoslavia, was re-inaugurated today by United Nations and local officials as a symbol of reconciliation and human solidarity in a broken land.
Forum Barcelona - a public-private partnership to advance sustainable development, cultural diversity and peace-building - has announced its backing for the Global Compact initiative of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan that promotes better corporate practices around the world.
The new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, who took up her position at the beginning of the month, today put protecting the rights of the most vulnerable people at the top of her list of priorities as she publicly outlined her work programme for the first time.
Despite some practical cooperation between the two sides in the Abkhaz separatist conflict in northwestern Georgia, there has been no substantive dialogue on key issues and human rights in the area remain in peril, Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in his latest report on the UN peacekeeping mission there.
The United Nations is rushing relief funds to Tajikistan, where massive floods and landslides have polluted the water supply in the capital, Dushanbe, leaving an estimated 40,000 people without clean water and susceptible to disease.
Seeking to better address the plight of 50 million people around the world uprooted from their homes by war and other emergencies, the United Nations has created a new office to "fill in the gaps" that previous efforts failed to tackle, its director said today.
