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The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) is assisting with perparations for new Syrian arrivals once Jordan’s third refugee camp opens on 30 April, a spokesperson today confirmed.

As more and more markets in Pacific Island countries fill their shelves with imported processed foods, healthier locally produced items are being priced out of the market, warned the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today, encouraging local governments to adopt measures and regulations to help reverse that trend.

The United Nations today stressed that Governments in Asia and the Pacific – which has more hungry people than all the other regions of the world combined – should take some major decisions soon about ways to increase food production and address undernourishment.

Food systems are too focused on maximizing profits and not enough on promoting the human right to adequate food and freedom from hunger, a United Nations independent expert said today, calling for the systems “to be radically and democratically redesigned” by promoting small farmers and cutting food imports.

Underscoring the Central African Republic’s (CAR) history of coups, violence and impunity, the head of a United Nations inquiry warned today that the spread of hate speech and the collapse of law and order in the strife-riven country are likely precursors to grave human rights violations, including genocide.

International and well-coordinated support is vital to helping Libya through its democratic transition, a United Nations envoy told the Security Council today, as he described the recent polarization in the country, a dramatic increase in violence, including attacks on the media, as well as difficulties in strengthening the security sector.

Women’s human rights have come a long way but there is still much to do and little time to do it in, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today opening the 2014 session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which this year will focus on development, particularly education and reproductive rights.

With tensions and mistrust growing in Ukraine, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged the international community to help the key actors calm the situation and work toward a durable and fair political solution, ahead of closed-door Security Council consultations on the crisis.

Noting the positive results of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) response programme in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan, the agency’s chief today committed to long-term support for farming and fishing communities, earlier today during a visit to the region.

As the2014 session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women got under way today, the head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) spotlighted the agency’s joint efforts with the World Bank to address the multidimensional challenges that women and girls face in Africa’s Great Lakes and Sahel regions.