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One million of the 2.4 million Afghans still in Pakistan after fleeing the 1979 Soviet invasion and later factional fighting have now been registered in a United Nations-backed operation by the Government of Pakistan that seeks to yield valuable information for continued repatriation efforts.

South African Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have thrown their support behind a United Nations programme to promote cancer radiation therapy in developing countries, where every day thousands of patients go without the radiotherapy necessary to save their lives or relieve their pain.

The United Nations agricultural development agency has approved almost $300 million in loans and grants to back rural assistance projects in 16 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

At a time when the film Blood Diamond depicts the efforts of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to feed the hacked and mutilated victims of Sierra Leone’s savage civil war during the 1990s, an agency officials intimately involved in the battle for survival recalled how the smugglers used the names of food for their contraband.

In health facilities and bazaars, schools and mahallas (traditional neighbourhood committees) more than 620,000 young people in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, are being vaccinated against measles and rubella in a mass United Nations-backed immunization campaign running until 25 December.

A senior United Nations envoy for the rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) today praised Georgia’s new draft strategy for dealing with the problem, especially the right to return and to local integration, but stressed the need to see that the provisions are carried out.

The United Nations today appealed for $98 million to help Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with basic services, political governance and economic recovery, as the Government works to bring stability following this year’s elections.

The head of the United Nations probe into last year’s assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri told the Security Council that his investigation into the deadly explosion and 14 other bombings is “approaching a sensitive and complicated phase.”

Secretary-General Kofi Annan is dispatching a senior envoy to Khartoum for talks with Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir about the details of recent agreements on ending the widespread killing and displacement in the war-torn Darfur region, including the role of the United Nations, a spokesman for the world body announced today.

Nearly all of the money deposited into a United Nations trust fund to help with the recovery after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 has been distributed, according to a report released today by the UN humanitarian branch.