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Calling for dialogue among key political parties in Bangladesh, a United Nations electoral assistance mission said today it was “deeply troubled” by the high level of political violence in the country as it prepares for polls scheduled for next January.

Describing the recent killing in war-torn Somalia of award-winning journalist Martin Adler as “despicable,” the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today urged the Transitional Government and the country’s Islamic Courts Union to identify and bring the perpetrators to justice.

The General Assembly’s budgetary committee today decided to lift the spending cap on the remainder of the United Nations’ two-year fiscal period, authorizing Secretary-General Kofi Annan to utilize the remaining funds in the budget for 2006-2007.

Expressing “profound concern” at the removal earlier this month of the head of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, two United Nations human rights experts today urged the country’s authorities not to interfere in the independence of the body but to guarantee its freedom of expression.

While noting that the efforts of the Security Council and humanitarian agencies have made much of the world safer, the United Nations top humanitarian official today pled for more comprehensive action to end the massive suffering of civilians still caught up in armed conflicts.

A United Nations-sponsored international meeting aimed at advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace opened in Vienna today with an appeal from Secretary-General Kofi Annan for an “essential” parallel commitment by both parties to a two-State solution.

Poverty for Africa’s 800 million inhabitants can be made history if the region’s wealth of natural resources is effectively, fairly and sustainably harnessed, but rapid deforestation, widespread land degradation, wasteful water use and climate change must be urgently addressed, according to a new United Nations report released today.

More than any other group, households headed by women in Ethiopia’s Southern Tigray region, one of the poorest in the world, are “among the most destitute” and are far more likely to be landless and without access to plant resources than households led by men, according to a United Nations-backed study.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is airlifting emergency supplies of hygiene equipment and water containers to flood affected districts in the Indonesian province of South Sulewesi, where over 7,500 people have been made homeless, more than 200 people have died and 135 people are missing.

A United Nations humanitarian expert has called on the international community to help Chad protect and assist tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) uprooted by an upsurge of violence and theft by janjaweed militias from Sudan.