Latest News

As United Nations envoys continued their efforts today to calm tensions and plan for a possible expanded UN police force in Timor-Leste, a funding shortfall is threatening food supplies for 155,000 people, 15 per cent of the total population, displaced by the violence that ripped through the small South-East Asian nation over the past two months.

Expressing concern about an Uzbek refugee arrested by Kazakh security agents last week in the capital Almaty, allegedly at the request of Uzbekistan, the United Nations refugee agency today appealed to the Government not to deport him but to allow the agency access and provide further information.

United Nations agencies today expressed concern at the humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, at a time when more than half of the area’s power supply has been knocked out, and roads and water pipes have also been damaged by Israeli air strikes.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has joined the Dominican Ambassador in honouring Dominican stars from the United States Major League Baseball at a pre-game ceremony at Boston’s Fenway Park for their successful efforts to raise funds and public support for the rebuilding of flood-destroyed areas of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, including their personal contributions.

Citing “factors of instability” that remain in Burundi despite democratization and ongoing negotiations with the last major rebel group outside the country’s peace process, the Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission there for six months until 31 December 2006.

The United Nations refugee agency today urged Member States to reaffirm their recognition of the “specific rights and needs” of refugees, including the fundamental obligation not to return them to countries where their life or liberty would be at risk.

Saying that armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) still threaten elections in the vast central African nation where political campaigns officially kicked off today, the United Nations Security Council today decided to extend until 30 September its authorization for a strengthened peacekeeping force in the country.

Responding to recent media statements by the leader of the Uganda-based Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) denying charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the world’s prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) today invited him, along with four other accused LRA commanders, to appear before The Hague-based body to defend themselves.

Describing the escalating violence of the past few days in the Gaza Strip as a “grave crisis,” a senior United Nations official warned the Security Council today that another full-scale conflict between Israelis and Palestinians could easily be set off, and urged all sides in the region to “step back from the brink.”

With thousands of men, women and children crammed on rusty unseaworthy boats braving the waves, and often facing death, each year in search of work, better living conditions or protection against persecution, the United Nations refugee agency today pledged support for new regulations to reinforce rescue mechanisms.