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Countries rich and poor continued their discussion of finance for development during the second day of a high-level dialogue organized by the General Assembly, focusing on an anti-poverty partnership sealed five years ago in Monterrey, Mexico.

The head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today welcomed the release in Mogadishu of its officer Idris Osman, who had been detained by authorities in the Somali capital since 17 October.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's new Special Representative for Sudan arrived today in the country's capital, Khartoum, where he is expected to hold meetings with top-level officials.

Monitoring developments on the Iraq-Turkey border, the United Nations refugee agency today warned that the number of Iraqis displaced by conflict could rise beyond the already staggering 4.7 million who have fled either within the country or across borders.

A flare-up of fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) North Kivu province, where Government forces have been clashing with those loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda and other groups, is sending thousands of people across the border into neighbouring Uganda, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.

Scores of people seeking a better life have been reportedly killed by brutal human smugglers during the perilous Gulf of Aden journey from Somalia to Yemen, adding to a mounting annual death toll that is already in the hundreds, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today.

United Nations agencies are continuing to provide essential support including food and emergency health kits to the survivors of severe floods which struck the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in August and September affecting nearly 1 million people and displacing almost 170,000.

With an estimated 6 billion injections given every year with syringes or needles that are reused without sterilization, the United Nations health agency has gathered together global experts to explore ways to promote the use of safer needles, which in turn can prevent the spread of viruses such as Hepatitis.

Voting in the referendum to determine whether Tokelau, a group of three small and isolated atolls, should have self-government in free association with New Zealand has moved to the atolls themselves, the United Nations team of observers monitoring the ballot has reported.

A senior commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army, the northern Ugandan rebel group, has surrendered in the northeast of the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations peacekeeping mission to that country reported today.