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The commander of an all-female Indian United Nations police unit has arrived in Liberia as part of an advance team that will pave the way for the landmark deployment of a 125-strong force later this month, the first time the world body has sent an all women specialized police unit to a peacekeeping operation.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today voiced “grave concern” about the situation in Guinea, which has been rocked by demonstrations in recent days, urging the Government to investigate killings and prosecute those responsible, including security forces.

Concerned at unrest in Guinea, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged the parties there to exercise restraint amid reports of deaths during demonstrations which have rocked the West African country in recent days.

Several thousand more people began fleeing an embattled separatist rebel-held pocket of land on Sri Lanka’s east coast today towards Government positions as Government forces were reported to be advancing amid intensified fighting, the United Nations refugee agency said.

More than 700,000 hungry Cambodians, mostly young children and HIV/AIDS and TB patients, will start going without essential food next month, and the situation is likely to worsen unless millions of dollars in new donations are received soon, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.

Numerous simultaneous natural and human-made emergencies in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, ranging from drought, floods, polio and fighting to the ills these crises engender such as water-borne diseases and displacement, are threatening millions of people with disastrous humanitarian consequences, according to a United Nations report issued today.

Victims of natural or man-made emergencies around the world will have access to life-saving medical supplies within 48 hours, even when several major crises strike simultaneously, under a new United Nations initiative announced today.

The United Nations refugee agency is opening two more field offices in Colombia, the country with the largest population of concern to the agency, to help cope with the crisis facing some 3 million people driven from their homes by more than 40 years of fighting between the Government, leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries.

Despite two cases of genetic mutation in bird flu in Egypt that moderately reduced the effectiveness of oseltamivir, the most strongly recommended drug, the United Nations health agency is not changing its recommendation because the level of resistance is not yet well established and the virus has not become more easily transmissible between humans.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today said that it would stop paying hard currency for its operations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) amid press reports on the agency’s activities there and announced plans to seek an independent, external audit, while Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an urgent, system wide investigation of UN activities in the field.