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Government policies that facilitate private sector investment in energy markets are crucial to help tap Africa’s massive renewable energy potential, which can fuel the continent’s poverty reduction efforts and put it on a path to sustainable development, according to a United Nations report released today.

A group of independent United Nations experts today condemned the arrest of at least 16 people in Syria, including prominent human rights figures, and called for the release of all those arbitrarily detained amid the ongoing Government crackdown on that began nearly a year ago.

An independent United Nations human rights expert today renewed his call on Israel to release a Palestinian prisoner who has been on a hunger strike for over two months to protest his detention and whose health is reported to be deteriorating.

The United Nations Messenger of Peace and two-time Academy Award winner Michael Douglas today appealed to children from around the world to bring to life their artistic impressions of what a world without nuclear weapons would look like.

The United Nations cultural agency has awarded its annual prize recognizing efforts to increase awareness of Arab culture to Lebanese author Elias Khoury and Brazilian publisher João Baptista de Medeiros Vargens.

The world’s largest refugee camp – the Dadaab settlement in eastern Kenya – set up to host tens of thousands of people who fled Somalia following the 1991 collapse of the government and the ensuing civil war-related humanitarian crisis is marking its 20th anniversary with the population having grown exponentially, the United Nations refugee agency said today.

Brazil is providing more than $2.3 million to support a new local food purchase programme to be set up by two United Nations entities for the benefit of farmers and vulnerable populations in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal, the UN agencies reported today.

Independent United Nations human rights experts today called on Morocco to consolidate and advance the country’s achievements on women’s rights by tackling gaps in its legal framework which put women at a disadvantage, adding that domestic and migrant workers are at higher risk of having their rights violated.

Destructive floods caused by the rapid thawing of the Danube River could add to the fatalities from an already harsh European winter, the head of the United Nations agency dealing with disaster risk reduction warned today.

The United Nations today voiced its confidence that the NATO-led military force in Afghanistan will take appropriate action to hold accountable those responsible for the reported burning of copies of the Koran.