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An indefinite European Union (EU) ban on wild bird imports, adopted to prevent the spread of bird flu to humans, risks creating black markets by ending a legal and tightly managed trade and undermining poor African communities who depend on it, according to a United Nations-backed body dealing with trade in endangered species.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon today denied media reports claiming that the Israeli military forces recently carried out an incursion over the Blue Line separating the two countries.

The United Nations, which has consistently pushed for a code of corporate social responsibility in private sector companies, ranging from responsible globalization to promoting human rights and fighting corruption, has launched an initiative to embed such practices in new European Union (EU) member countries.

United Nations peacekeepers have been called in to assist Liberian police to enhance security and improve management of a large rubber plantation in the West African nation that is consolidating democracy following a 14-year civil war.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who took office at the world body’s helm on 1 January, will travel to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to meet with United States President George W. Bush, his spokesperson announced today.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Envoy for Darfur heads to the war-torn region today for talks as part of United Nations efforts to find a durable solution to the conflict that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced at least 2.5 million others since 2003.

China and Russia today vetoed a draft resolution in the Security Council – the first use of multiple vetoes at the Council since 1989 – that had called on Myanmar to release all political prisoners, begin widespread dialogue and end its military attacks and human rights abuses against ethnic minorities.

Three independent United Nations human rights experts have called on Iran to stop the imminent execution of seven Iranian Arab dissidents on charges of “being at war with God,” citing allegations of torture and “trials that made a mockery of due process.”

Pursuing efforts to promote eco-friendly sports, the heads of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) today reviewed plans to ensure that environmental concerns figure as a major priority for next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing, from cutting pollution to landscaping.

Although the long-standing refugee crisis in the Great Lakes region of Africa continued to ease last year with tens of thousands of people criss-crossing borders to get home, serious challenges still remain in what has become a complex two-way traffic, the United Nations says in its latest update.