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Sen. Patrick Leahy today became the latest member of the United States Congress to lend his support to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has been buffeted by calls for his resignation in the wake of various allegations of relating to the administration of the UN Oil-for-Food programme for Iraq.

As vaccinators continue a campaign aimed at eradicating polio from Africa, award-winning film actress Mia Farrow says global efforts must continue until the debilitating and sometimes deadly disease is eradicated.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today enlisted music into the battle to help thousands of impoverished Haitians recover from the deadly tropical storm that devastated their country in September, releasing a video by Grammy-award winning singer/songwriter Wyclef Jean to help raise funds.

Under its banner of “Health as a bridge for peace,” a United Nations agency is sponsoring a new joint bimonthly magazine by Israeli and Palestinian professionals to improve public health in the West Bank and Gaza Strip despite the conflict dividing the two peoples.

Greater investment in agriculture and rural development is essential to spur economic growth in developing countries and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aim to slash hunger and poverty in half by 2015, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

The United Nations refugee agency is closing several camps in Iran following the departure of more than half the 202,000 Iraqis who sought refuge there, most of whom have returned home on their own initiative despite the violence wracking the country.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest humanitarian agency, and China – the world’s most populous country – have marked 25 years of partnership with a landmark agreement to combat global hunger with increased Chinese funding and expertise.

With 340,000 Liberian refugees across West Africa expected to return home over the next three years, 150,000 of them in 2005 alone, repatriation is picking up pace, with Côte d’Ivoire joining in the repatriation movement for the first time since it began last October, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.

With malaria and measles topping the list of child killers in Africa, the Government of Togo has teamed with the United Nations public health agency and its children’s fund to mount a single integrated campaign to protect children from those diseases, as well as from polio and intestinal worms, starting with 1 million children in the West African country.

In its latest expression of concern on the situation in northwestern Colombia, the United Nations refugee agency today reported fresh violence against indigenous inhabitants caught up in the country’s decades-old civil war between the Government, leftwing rebels and rightwing militias.