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With the number of Malawians threatened by hunger climbing to more than 5 million, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today urged donors to quickly provide crucially needed aid to offset a crisis marked by sharp rises in malnutrition rates and maize prices three months earlier than the traditional lean season.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today called on donors to provide $1 million for immediate food assistance to 6,300 Colombian refugees and asylum seekers living in Ecuador after fleeing a decades-long armed conflict that has displaced almost 3 million of their fellow countrymen.

Voicing serious concern over continuing unrest in northern areas of the Central African Republic (CAR), the United Nations refugee agency said today it had received reports that up to 3,000 people could be headed toward the border with Chad after an attack Tuesday on the town of Markounda by an unidentified armed group.

The United Nations-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today approved its fifth round of grant proposals since it was established in 2002, committing $382 million over two years to 26 grants in 20 countries.

Tajikistan needs to undertake further legal reforms to ensure its peaceful development, including measures to strengthen human rights enforcement and guarrantee an independent judiciary, a United Nations judicial expert said today.

To mark the International Day of Older Persons, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called on world leaders to make good on their promise to protect a growing population of people over 60 by empowering them in productive jobs, and eliminating the conditions that lead to poverty in old age.

Saying he was "particularly appalled" by Wednesday's deadly attack on an internally displaced persons' (IDPs) camp in Sudan's Darfur region, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called for an immediate halt to attacks, as well as action by the country's Government to protect its people and redoubled efforts from all sides to achieve peace.

The United Nations Emergency Coordinator today condemned a proposed move to expel nearly 3,000 displaced people forcefully from a Roman Catholic mission in Côte d'Ivoire, announced in a Government circular this week, as counter to humanitarian principles.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today urged Iraqis of all persuasions to stand firm in the face of the appalling suicide bomb attacks which have killed scores of people over the last two days.

A member of the steering committee of Rwanda's now defunct, privately-owned Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM), which incited listeners to ethnic hatred, pleaded not guilty today to five counts in connection with the 1994 genocide.