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Peacekeeping officials dealing with communications and information technology in a number of hotspots across the globe today completed a five-day meeting at the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), where gender concerns were addressed as part of overall planning.

A United Nations-backed fund to help the States of sub-Saharan Africa improve the preservation of their cultural and natural heritage was launched today in South Africa, which donated $3.5 million to help the project, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said.

With 1,000 people already dead from cholera in Angola, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is appealing for $1 million to fight the most severe outbreak of the disease there since 1988.

Delegations from Kosovo and Serbia today showed some agreement but also significant differences on decentralizing the Albanian-majority Serbian province, which the United Nations has administered ever since the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) drove out Yugoslav troops in 1999 amid grave rights abuses in ethnic fighting.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today launched a new water network to benefit up to 30,000 people in a region of Pakistan devastated by last October’s earthquake.

Cheering, dancing and singing, local residents lined the road in a south Sudanese village to greet the first convoy of returning compatriots from Uganda, where they had sought refuge from two decades of war under a United Nations-sponsored voluntary repatriation operation.

Increased investment in agriculture is crucial for boosting economic growth in seven ex-Soviet states in Eastern Europe and Central Asia where more than 50 percent of the population now lives below the national poverty line, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

Even as he presented an award to a Lebanese journalist who lost a hand and a leg in an attempted car bomb assassination, the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) had to deplore the murder of two more media professionals on the eve of the ceremony and in the very country hosting it.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today called on international donors to provide urgently needed funds to ensure food aid to 3.5 million hungry Afghans, warning that there will be a break in food supplies this month without fresh donations.

Forsaking the air-conditioned cool of the ice rink for the torrid heat of Sudan, Norwegian Olympic speed-skating champion Johann Koss is visiting camps for the displaced, schools and clinics to plead the case for youngsters in Africa’s largest country as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).