Latest News

On its difficult journey from conflict and devastation to nascent democracy, Afghanistan has succeeded in forging a progressively reinvigorated State, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today in London, urging the international community to respond with assistance and pledging the support of the United Nations in this endeavour.

Violence in Sri Lanka has ebbed since the Government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last week agreed to hold new talks, but scores of people continue leaving the southern part of the country for India, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) reported today.

Aiming to help close the “digital divide,” the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Seoul Government today sealed a pact to open a technology centre in the Republic of Korea.

Expressing its determination to enforce the weapons ban it has imposed on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations Security Council today asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan to appoint a successor expert panel to monitor illicit arms imports, as well as travel bans and assets freezes on all violators.

A senior United Nations official today reported to the Security Council that there is wide backing in Lebanon for the establishment of a tribunal of an international character to try those charged with the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and others.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called on Kosovo Serb leaders to work to promote government reform and other key goals in the UN-run province, saying he was “seriously concerned” by the slow progress and setbacks in recent months.

Gravely concerned at the persistence of tension and violence along the withdrawal line between Israel and Lebanon, the Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping force operating in the area (UNIFIL) through July.

Persons with disabilities who have gathered at United Nations Headquarters from all over the world to negotiate the first-ever convention on their rights expressed confidence today that the session will pave the way for a full agreement guaranteeing protections and preventing discrimination, but they said it was just the beginning of their battle for equality.<

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today said it will send an expert team to Iraq to examine reports of a fatal case of avian influenza, or “bird flu,” in the war-ravaged country.

Chronic poverty, bad weather conditions, bad harvest, a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS and an outbreak of cholera are forming a deadly combination in Malawi, where the situation of young people remains dire, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today.