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The vanguard of a new contingent of United Nations peacekeepers has arrived in embattled Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to boost security for forthcoming elections that it is hoped will cement the vast country’s transition from years of bloody conflict to peace and democracy.

Facing a serious funding shortfall for its activities in Colombia, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has appealed for more than $4 million to protect former child soldiers and prevent additional recruitment in the country’s decades-old civil war, provide life-saving aid to displaced people and increase de-mining.

Although spring rains have been falling in East Africa in recent weeks, they come too late to end the hunger crisis that threatens some 8 million people, United Nations agencies active in the parched region said today.

Executives of financial giant Goldman Sachs and toymaker Lego are among the 20 business, labour and civil society leaders named today by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to serve on the Board of the Global Compact, a six-year-old initiative he launched to advance responsible globalization, fight corruption and promote human rights.

After assisting 300,000 Liberians to return home as the country recovers from its brutal, decade-long civil war, the Government of Liberia and the United Nations Mission there (UMIL) today celebrated the end of their aid programme for internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The disastrous combination of a worsening humanitarian situation, Government obstruction, rebel violence and weakened support of the international community has left relief operations in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region on the verge of breakdown, placing millions of people at risk, the top United Nations humanitarian official told the Security Council today.

While the number of refugees worldwide has reached its lowest level in 25 years at 9.2 million, the surge in internally displaced people to some 25 million has put the international system for dealing with human displacement at a critical juncture, according to a new United Nations report released today.

Continuing his efforts to tamp down rising sectarian violence, the top United Nations envoy in Iraq today discussed the need to form a government of national unity as soon as possible with the war-torn country’s leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani.

Developing camel dairy products such as milk can not only provide more food to people in arid and semi-arid areas but also give nomadic herders a rich source of income, with a $10 billion world market entirely within the realm of possibility, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The main United Nations body entrusted with mitigating the impact of natural disasters today used the 100th anniversary of the great San Francisco earthquake to call for greater steps to protect schoolchildren such as better buildings and training, noting that at least 17,000 youngsters died in schools in last year’s Pakistani quake.