Latest News

A year-old United Nations project aimed at helping developing country health research institutions to protect and commercialize their results has reached its halfway point, with 90 newly trained experts in patents and licences, the coordinating World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said today.

With vaccine-preventable diseases killing some 1.4 million children under five annually, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned today that an estimated 27 million children and 40 million pregnant women are not being immunized each year and 41 countries are protecting fewer youngsters than a decade ago.

World cereal production in 2005 is forecast at 1,984 million tonnes, slightly down since the previous forecast and 3.4 per cent less than 2004's record output, according to the latest United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report issued today.

Surpassing original estimates of attendance, the United Nations Pavilion at Expo Aichi 2005, which closed its doors on 25 September in Aichi, Japan, drew some 2,100,000 visitors to a vivid, comprehensive overview of 38 agencies, funds and programmes of the UN system, the lead agency for the event said today.

Condemning “in the strongest terms” yesterday’s suicide attack against Afghan soldiers in Kabul, the United Nations mission today called on the people of the strife-torn country to rally round the national army as an essential element in restoring stability.

The Security Council has strongly condemned the attempted assassination of May Chidiac, a prominent Lebanese journalist, near Beirut this past Sunday, only a few days after another terrorist attack in the city killed one person and injured several others.

Gathered under United Nations auspices, families of missing persons from all over Iraq, Government human rights officials and international groups wrapped up a meeting today in Amman, Jordan, aimed at setting up a national centre for missing and disappeared persons in the war-torn country.

The United Nations refugee agency today voiced "grave concern" over an "unprecedented attack," purportedly by armed Arab men, on a camp for thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in western Sudan's Darfur region that is reported to have left 29 people dead and another 10 seriously wounded.

Facing dire warnings of an impending global pandemic of avian influenza, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today announced the appointment of a United Nations system coordinator for the virus, which is presently decimating poultry stocks in Asia and could cross over to humans to deadly effect.

The United Nations envoy seeking an end to foreign interference in Lebanon had a prolonged, "useful and productive" meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo today, reviewing both Lebanese issues and the broader political context.