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The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today unveiled the names of the 13 nominees proposed by Member States to replace the late Lee Jong-wook as Director-General of the Geneva-based agency.

About 10,000 demonstrators have protested in the South Darfur town of Nyala against last week’s Security Council resolution calling for the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force in the strife-torn Darfur region, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reported today.

Governments must do more to address the human rights violations and lack of opportunities that force women and girls, who make up half the world’s 95 million migrants, to leave their homes, while countries need to work together to make migration safer and in particular stamp out human trafficking, according to new reports issued today by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Welcoming Israel’s decision to lift its blockade of Lebanon tomorrow, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the move will speed up Lebanese reconstruction efforts after the month of conflict and added he would continue to explore all avenues to ensure full implementation of the Security Council resolution that ended the fighting.

Education, youth, immigration, women and media will be the priorities of the first major report by the Alliance of Civilizations, an initiative set up by Secretary-General Kofi Annan last year to try to bridge the gap between Islam and the West.

At least 2,500 representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) gathered at United Nations Headquarters in New York for an annual conference that this year focused on the theme of fostering partnerships for security and sustainable development.

The United Nations Legal Counsel arrived in Lebanon today at the start of a three-day visit to discuss the setting up of an international tribunal to look into last year’s killing of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others, a UN spokesman told reporters.

With armed conflicts raging around the world, prevention is too important to be left in the hands of governments alone, senior United Nations officials told the press in New York today on the eve of a General Assembly debate on Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s recent report on the issue.

The United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator spent the second day of his visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and a demobilization site in the southern province of Katanga.

Ministers, senior government representatives, academics, members of civil society and representatives of the private sector are expected to gather in Seoul tomorrow for the United Nations-backed Regional Forum on Reinventing Government in Asia.