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Pro-poor, gender-sensitive urban policies and action plans must be adopted if governments are to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) that calls for significant improvement in the lives of nearly 100 million slum-dwellers by 2020, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a new report.

Underlining its support for the United Nations commission investigating the assassination last February of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the Security Council today reiterated its call for all States and all parties, especially those which have yet to respond adequately, to provide any information that can help solve the crime.

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.

With emaciated children in Niger hanging between life and death and only half of the requested funding on hand, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi-Annan appealed to the world not to get bogged down in “irrelevant debates” over the tardiness of its response but to act now to save hundreds of lives daily in this drought-stricken country where nearly 3 million people are at risk.

A Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, a female boxing champion and artists from the world of music were recruited today in the United Nations fight to halve hunger and poverty, slash infant and maternal mortality and achieve the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Kenya.

Faced with an alarming increase in cholera outbreaks in West Africa this summer, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has convened a regional meeting of UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to arrest the spread of the disease.

Welcoming the Iraqi Government’s constructive engagement in the ongoing inquiry into the fate of Kuwaitis who went missing in Iraq after the 1990 invasion of their country, the United Nations Security Council today expressed confidence that the parties involved would work to ensure that all outstanding issues were satisfactorily addressed.

Serious gender disparities, if not addressed, could frustrate sustainable development in Sierra Leone as it recovers from its long civil war, a top United Nations envoy to the West African country said yesterday.