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The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and a mainly Tutsi rebel group have set the stage for substantive dialogue and have turned their attention to a joint cessation of hostilities, the United Nations Special Envoy leading talks aimed at ending the deadly conflict in the vast African nation said today.

To safeguard the gains made in Cote d’Ivoire in the two years since the Ouagadougou peace agreement was signed, a new report by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recommends extending the United Nations peacekeeping force there, known as UNOCI, for another six-month period.

Appalled that fighting was still continuing in Gaza despite the Security Council’s ceasefire resolution, senior United Nations officials said today they were horrified at the human costs amid reports that over 40 per cent of the nearly 900 Palestinians killed in the Israeli offensive, and almost half of the 3,860 wounded, were women and children.

On the eve of his departure for wide-ranging, high-level talks in the Middle East to personally help broker a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on Israel and Hamas to immediately stop fighting.

Talks between the representatives of Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on the name of the latter country will take place in New York on 11 February, the United Nations official spearheading the discussions announced today.

With Somali refugees continuing to flood into Kenya for relief from violence and drought, the United Nations emergency relief fund has targeted five million dollars to cover gaps in their nutritional needs, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced today.

The United Nations human rights office in Nepal deplored the brutal murder of a female journalist who was hacked to death in her own home yesterday and called on local authorities to conduct an immediate investigation.

The top United Nations envoy leading peace talks in the war-ravaged eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today denied remarks attributed to him in an article published yesterday by the Reuters news agency.

United States Vice President-Elect, Joseph Biden, today met with the top United Nations official in Afghanistan to discuss the situation on the ground in the war-ravaged country as well as priorities for the next 12 months.

The United Nations food agency today announced an initiative to help ramp up food distribution to the growing number of hungry people in the Gaza Strip, where a military offensive Israel says it launched in response to Hamas rocket attacks is in its 15th day.