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Breaking a diplomatic deadlock that for weeks threatened to leave the United Nations without a budget for its operating expenses, the General Assembly has adopted a $3.79 billion budget for 2006-2007 while limiting first-year expenditures by the Secretary-General, who welcomed the compromise with a pledge for further reform.

With temperatures in mountain villages plunging to minus 10 degrees Celsius at night, the United Nations refugee agency is boosting its winterization campaign with a new round of aid distribution in camps for survivors of Pakistan’s devastating October earthquake, which left up to 3 million people homeless.

As more than 9 million southern Africans face hunger over the holiday season while much of the rest of the world feasts, United Nations agencies today pleaded for immediate donor aid to continue feeding the hungriest.

Track and field fans around the world will have a unique chance next week to buy their own piece of sporting history when the personal mementos of some of athletics' most famous moments go on Internet auction, with the proceeds to go to three United Nations humanitarian agencies.

One year after the Indian Ocean tsunami, Aceh and Nias in Indonesia, the worst-hit areas, are on the brink of a construction boom which is showing a gigantic leap in spending from a normal $50 million to some $2 billion a year, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The United Nations General Assembly has called for a timely completion of negotiations on the World Trade Organization’s so-called “Doha Round,” which aims to maximize the international trade’s contribution to raising living standards, eradicating poverty, and generating employment in developing countries.

Canada has become the first State to ratify an international convention on retaining the rich diversity of the world’s means of cultural expression, now endangered by globalization, which was adopted last October by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

A body found in a canal in Brussels, Belgium, a week ago has been identified as that that of former Rwandan Commerce Minister Juvénal Uwilingiyimana, who was indicted by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and was cooperating with its investigation into the 1994 genocide.

Echoing yesterday’s acclamation from the United Nations Security Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today congratulated the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for the successful conduct of their constitutional referendum on 18 and 19 December, despite the tremendous challenges they faced.

The top United Nations’ human rights official today urged the Uzbek government to abide by international legal standards amid reports that dozens of defendants were convicted during closed-door trials held earlier this month.