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Launching a multi-million dollar emergency relief appeal, a United Nations food agency today expressed grave concern over the fate of 1 million war-affected Eritreans still struggling to meet their basic food needs a year after the end of their country's border conflict with neighbouring Ethiopia.

Experts from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean gathered at the United Nations offices in Santiago, Chile, today, for a two-day seminar on attracting tourists who wish to experience the region's ecological wonders.

United Nations officials today decried a reported proposal by the Taliban which would require all non-Muslims in Afghanistan to wear identity labels on their clothing.

A delegation of the Security Council that is currently on a trip to the Great Lakes region of Africa held talks with the Burundian leaders in Bujumbura today, underscoring the Council's awareness of the link between the situations in Burundi and in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Efforts to protect the environment and safeguard human health took a major step forward today as a new treaty banning the world's most dangerous pesticides was opened for signature at a United Nations-sponsored meeting in Stockholm, Sweden.

An envoy of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will visit Myanmar next week to help facilitate the process of democratization and national reconciliation there, a UN spokesman said today in New York.

In a joint effort to provide essential medicines at affordable prices, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis today signed an agreement in Geneva aimed at providing developing countries with a new treatment for malaria at cost.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers today identified steps for a more coordinated international effort to help the world's estimated 20-25 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Secretary-General Kofi Annan will pay an official visit to the United States capital tomorrow to discuss matters of mutual concern with key Congressional leaders, including those charged with foreign policy, his spokesman announced today.

The outgoing President of the Conference on Disarmament said today that the prevailing international security environment was unfavourable for the work of the Geneva-based body, and reported that consensus on its work programme was still out of reach.