Latest News

Having received only just over half of the funding needed for its programme in eastern Sudan, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today appealed to donors to make up the shortfall as it struggled to feed 90,000 Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees who fled conflicts in their countries and are afraid to go home.

Nearly one year after the bloody siege of School No. 1 in Beslan shattered the small town in southern Russia and left some 330 people dead, half of them children, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has helped mount an exhibition of nearly 100 photographs vividly depicting their pain, grief and hopes for the future.

With an eight-month old peace deal signed between the Sudanese Government and Southern rebels holding steady, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today handed over a refurbished airport to the local government in South Sudan’s interim capital of Rumbek to provide greater access to the war-wracked region.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has launched a new military operation in the troubled eastern Ituri region of the vast country, deploying five fighting companies with aerial support to force a rebel Rwandan militia to fulfil its pledges to disarm and return home.

Although food assistance is finally coming into Niger after an initially slow response, the top United Nations relief coordinator today raised the alarm over a looming crisis in the southern African country of Malawi where some 4.2 million to 4.6 million people will be facing food insecurity by the end of the year.

The United Nations-affiliated International Seabed Authority has ended its work for the year, but postponed consideration of new regulations to govern exploration for rich, recently discovered mineral deposits in the deep ocean beyond national jurisdictions, an area called “the common heritage of all mankind.”

In the face of growing concern over the exacerbation of desertification, particularly in Africa, more active support and a more timely response would be appreciated given the limited time available for the successful celebration next year of the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a recent report to the General Assembly.

United Nations agencies are rushing aid to the Central African Republic (CAR) to forestall an outbreak of diseases and are appealing for substantial international funding after devastating floods swept the capital, Bangui, ruining over 2,500 homes, affecting nearly 20,000 people, and threatening even worse destruction.

With the economy of the occupied Palestinian territory continuing its sharp deterioration, a new United Nations report today stressed that efforts to launch an economic revival should target poverty reduction while expanding production and trade.

Increasing poverty and a growing schism between the “haves” and the “have nots” continue to pose a major threat to developing democracies around the world, and the resulting economic and social inequality will continue to breed violence and terror if the trend is not reversed, a United Nations report said today.