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A major accounting firm auditing the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in the wake of media allegations of corruption has stated that it “cannot conclude that certain employees of WIPO and third parties concerned might have committed any fraud or dishonest acts,” the agency said today.

Bearing new evidence pointing to Syria’s involvement in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and its reluctance to investigate the crime, the head of the independent probe on the matter presented his latest report to the Security Council, where the Ambassador of Syria denied this account while Lebanon’s representative called for the creation of an international tribunal.

With this week’s campaign to vaccinate 1.3 million children in the West African country of Benin, the United Nation-supported Measles Initiative is in reach of its goal of preventing 1 million deaths from the disease over five years by immunizing 200 million youngsters in more than 40 countries.

Nearly 12 million people in southern Africa, mainly in Zimbabwe and Malawi, are still in need of emergency food assistance despite a record maize harvest in South Africa, according to the new Africa report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today.

More than nine weeks after a devastating earthquake in Pakistan killed more than 70,000 people, injured 70,000 more and left up to 3 million people homeless, the United Nations relief appeal faces a shortfall of some 60 per cent, with a new survey showing an urgent need for 2.4 million blankets as the harsh winter sets in.

Continuing its campaign against the killing of journalists, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today deplored the car bomb attack in Beirut that killed four people including Gebran Tueni, the publisher and editor of the Lebanese newspaper An Nahar.

With the impact of ozone-depleting substances already reduced to 2 per cent of their effect during peak years, representatives of the world’s governments are meeting in Dakar, Senegal to plan the complete elimination of chemicals that destroy the protective layer of the earth’s atmosphere, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) reported today.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today urged wealthy countries to set an unambiguous date to end “trade-distorting subsidies” and take other steps to give market access to developing countries, especially in agriculture, allowing trade to improve living conditions around the world.

A Romanian Special Police Unit working under the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) came under fire yesterday during an unsuccessful prison breakout by 14 inmates in the western part of the province, which the world body has administered since 1999.

Seeking to expedite the judicial process, the United Nations International Criminal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague today decided to deny former President Slobodan Milosevic’s request for more time to argue his case.