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Learning of Iran’s plans to resume research and development on its suspended “peaceful” nuclear energy programme, the head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reminded Tehran that it should maintain its suspension of all enrichment-related activities.

The high death toll in 2005 from tsunamis, hurricanes, typhoons, mudslides, earthquakes, volcanoes, locusts and pandemics can not necessarily be blamed on “natural” disaster, according to the United Nations health agency which today pointed to a complex mix of human and natural factors that led to tragedy in those events.

As rain and snow pelted the areas of Pakistan devastated by last October’s massive earthquake, aid workers are working to help survivors cope with dipping temperatures, the United Nations refugee agency said today.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today condemned the suicide bombing that took place in Iraq during a funeral service in Miqdadiya, where over 30 people were killed and many others wounded.

The Executive Secretary of the United Nations-managed Convention on Biological Diversity has called for all people to unite in preserving the planet’s many species and ecosystems.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights today expressed “deep regret” over the Cambodian Government’s arrest of two more human rights activists and warned this trend threatens to undo efforts to build a just society in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today mourned the death and paid tribute to the legacy of Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, one of the seven sheikdoms that make up the United Arab Emirates for which Sheikh Maktoum also served as Prime Minister and Vice-President.

A United Nations-backed treaty meant to conserve a vast area of forests, streams and mountains in the heart of Europe sprang to life today as Hungary became the fourth nation – along with the Slovak Republic, Ukraine and the Czech Republic – to ratify it.

While keeping a close watch on the Haitian elections, the crisis in the Horn of Africa and other hotspots around the world, the United Nations Security Council plans to hold a ministerial-level meeting on Africa’s Great Lakes region as a high point of its January agenda, the body’s President for the month said today.

Laws aimed at protecting Afghanistan’s wildlife, waterways and forests, believed to be the first legal conservation tools in the country, have been developed by the Government with assistance from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the agency announced today.