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As one of its first steps towards reducing its greenhouse gas footprint, the United Nations – after one of the most wide-ranging and painstaking exercises in its history – announced today that it emits 1.7 million tons of carbon dioxide annually worldwide.

A United Nations committee on Palestinian rights today called on the international community “to take urgent and decisive action against the continued illegal Israeli actions,” warning that Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory risk undermining the whole structure of international law.

Opium cultivation in Myanmar has increased for the third year in a row, with the number of hectares rising by 11 per cent – a total of almost 50 per cent since 2006 – although production was down due to a fall in yield per hectare, the United Nations anti-drug agency reported today.

A top United Nations human rights official arrives in Nepal today to help accelerate the release of nearly 3,000 child soldiers who served in the Maoist army during the country’s decade-long civil war and remain in temporary camps three years after a peace deal ended the conflict.

Transport ministers and experts from across Asia and the Pacific opened a week-long series of meetings at United Nations headquarters in Bangkok today to accelerate regional integration by further linking national railway networks and setting up major hub stations connecting inland economic centres.

The top United Nations envoy to Sudan today welcomed the peaceful ending of the registration process for next year’s elections, the first multi-party polls in the country in decades, with more than 75 per cent of people of voting age registering to cast their ballots.

The United Nations agency that promotes commerce to fight poverty kicked off a meeting today aimed at finding ways in which trade, investment and technology transfers between developing countries – so-called “South-South” cooperation – can improve farming to boost food security in poorer nations.

The United Nations humanitarian arm today appealed for more than $177 million to provide the basic survival needs for some 1.6 million Yemenis suffering from acute poverty and a recent escalation in violent clashes in the country’s north.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate and green advocate Wangari Maathai will become a United Nations Messenger of Peace with a special focus on the environment and climate change, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today.

The resumption of the death penalty in Iraq earlier this year is a source of great concern to the United Nations, according to the world body’s latest report covering the human rights situation in the country.