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The latest round of United Nations-sponsored global climate change negotiations began today in Accra, Ghana, bringing together more than 1,600 participants to discuss future greenhouse gas emission reduction targets ahead of a major summit set for 2009.

A successful outcome to global trade talks is vital to strengthening the world economy and improving the livelihoods of millions of poor and vulnerable people, the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said today, following the recent collapse of the Doha round of trade liberalization negotiations.

United Nations humanitarian agencies are assisting the Lao Government to bring relief to more than 150,000 people who have been affected by some of the worst flooding in a century in the South-East Asian country.

Glasgow has been declared a City of Music by the United Nations culture agency, joining its neighbour Edinburgh on its Creative Cities Network, established to promote social, economic and cultural development.

General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim departs tomorrow night on a three-day visit to the Republic of Korea that will focus on issues ranging from climate change and financing for development to the current food and energy crises.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is sending a letter of condolence to Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero after yesterday’s plane crash in Madrid, which killed more than 150 people.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is holding training sessions for the vast African nation’s police in a bid to ensure that victims and witnesses of sexual violence are better protected.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council have condemned today’s double suicide bombing in the north-eastern Pakistani town of Wah, near the capital Islamabad, which has claimed numerous civilian lives and injured many others.

The United Nations health agency is launching a new information campaign to highlight the impact of the hepatitis B virus, which is currently found in about 2 billion people worldwide despite being largely preventable by vaccine for more than 25 years.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has noted a substantial movement of populations between South Ossetia in Georgia and Russia’s North Ossetia region, making it difficult to establish the exact number of people displaced by recent hostilities.