Latest News

Two million people hit by recent floods in Burundi need $12 million in urgent aid to tide them over until the end of the so-called ‘lean season’ in June and avert a food crisis, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.

The United Nations-backed body overseeing a global treaty governing trade in endangered species has lifted a year-long ban on beluga caviar, the world’s most expensive, after Caspian Sea countries agreed to reduce the catch quota by 29 per cent compared with 2005, the last year for which quotas were approved.

The world is turning increasingly to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for help in the fight against illegal drugs, corruption, terrorism and other crimes, with the latest figures indicating that demand for the Office’s specialist expertise is surging.

Almost 60 countries today committed themselves to putting an end to the unlawful recruitment and use of children in armed conflicts wherever they occur, one of a series of measures known as the Paris Principles, agreed at a two-day conference in France which was co-hosted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Government.

Just days after a landmark United Nations report showed unequivocally that the world is warming due to human activities, the two main UN agencies focusing on the environment and poverty today committed themselves to working closer than ever in helping developing countries integrate sound environmental policies into their economic strategies.

In Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna Peninsula, the United Nations refugee agency has supplied aid to more than 2,000 families hosting thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) who have escaped renewed fighting between the Government forces and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels.

The support of the international community is vital in easing the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) as well as the increased pressure on countries like Syria and Jordan, which together host more than 1 million Iraqis, the head of the United Nations refugee agency has said.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon today voiced sadness at the death of Angela E.V. King, the Jamaican who served as the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, and paid tribute to her legacy in fervently championing the equality of women and men.

The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Darfur and his African Union (AU) counterpart will conduct a joint mission to Sudan next week as part of their efforts to revive the stalled peace process in the war-torn region.

The United Nations refugee agency today called on all armed groups in Colombia to respect international humanitarian law and leave civilians out of the more than four-decades-long conflict which has uprooted some 3 million people in fighting between the Government, leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries.