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Some 45 million people living along the coasts of Europe will benefit from a new life-saving United Nations-backed project to provide early warnings of an impending tsunami, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reported today.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced outrage at this morning’s terrorist bombing of two commuter buses in Beirut, calling for an end to impunity in Lebanon and urging the country’s people to maintain national unity despite the recent series of assassinations and terrorist attacks.

A convergence of positive factors, including a new Palestinian unity Government and the first political talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in six years, have the potential to help restore calm and re-energize efforts to achieve a two-State solution, but many immediate and longer-term challenges need to be overcome, a senior United Nations official reported today.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today launched a $62 million drive to help over a million people who have been forced to flee their homes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – both those who became internally displaced and others crossing borders to surrounding countries.

A day after briefing the Security Council on the need for continued international support for Timor-Leste, the United Nations envoy to the country today said he was cautiously optimistic about its future ahead of this year’s landmark elections, but he also highlighted the deadly violence in 2006 as a warning against any early withdrawal of UN assistance.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today strongly welcomed the nuclear agreement reached at six-party talks in Beijing, describing it as the first step towards a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula and urging all sides to “sustain the current positive momentum” and ensure the accord is implemented.

An independent United Nations human rights expert today added his voice to the chorus of officials calling on Iraq to not proceed with the planned hanging of former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan, saying his trial was so “marred by serious irregularities” that to execute him would clearly violate international law.

The United Nations-assisted return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their homes in southern Sudan’s Blue Nile state is stepping up as the area rebuilds in the wake of the long-running north-south civil war.

The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Darfur and his African Union (AU) counterpart have held talks with senior Sudanese Government officials and a prominent former rebel at the start of their joint five-day mission to try to re-energize the stalled peace process in the war-torn region.

Drawing on his own firsthand experience growing up in the war-torn Republic of Korea, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said that Liberians, who are working to consolidate peace and democracy from the ashes of a devastating 14-year civil war, should look ahead to a brighter future with the assistance of the international community.