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In a new analysis after the military coup, United Nations economists predicted today that Thailand’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth could reach 4.7 per cent next year if the new government maintains political stability, but would only reach 3.1 per cent in the case of instability.

The United Nations’ Deputy Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery today added his voice to the chorus of alarm at reports that more than 200 civilians had been killed and thousands more displaced during the past two months in fresh fighting between Government forces and Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka.

With about one of every three children in Latin America and the Caribbean living in districts underserved for health care, a regional United Nations meeting today called for new funding to ensure immunization at more than 95 per cent in all districts and to meet the target of eliminating rubella and congenital rubella syndrome by 2010.

Almost a quarter of a million people in northern parts of the Central African Republic (CAR) have been forced to flee their homes in recent months because of “severe levels of violence” perpetrated by armed groups, including Government soldiers, the top United Nations aid official in the impoverished country said today, warning of the regional impact of this unrest.

The Security Council voted unanimously today to extend the mandates of the United Nations peacekeeping missions in Eritrea and Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Liberia, which would have otherwise expired at the end of this month.

A top United Nations official is likely to return to Myanmar in early November for high-level talks to try to help the Asian country make serious progress in human rights, political freedoms and humanitarian assistance.

The Security Council voted today to extend the mandate of the panel of experts set up to help a Council committee monitor an arms embargo in the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur.

Climate change must be viewed as much more than an environmental issue if the world is to understand and tackle the scope and nature of the threat it represents, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said last night.

An independent United Nations human rights expert today called for the immediate release of three prominent student leaders in Myanmar reportedly arrested yesterday, citing numerous charges of abuse in pre-trial detention as cause for “extreme” concern.

Highlighting the daily struggle of billions of people living in the world’s drylands, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has awarded a major prize to two grassroots initiatives that combat desertification and land degradation in Colombia and Mauritania.