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The United Nations and the European Union (EU) “are engaged in a vital, tremendously complementary partnership,” particularly in helping the world’s poorest countries boost their social and economic development and providing urgent relief following natural disasters and other emergencies, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro today.

The United Nations-sponsored International Compact for Iraq (ICI), which seeks to consolidate peace in the war-torn country and pursue political, economic and social development over the next five years, will hold a meeting in New York this Friday, a spokesperson for the world body announced today.

The United Nations Political Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) has expressed concern over media reports quoting the chairman of the country’s Maoists as saying the group retains weapons and combatants outside specified cantonment sites, actions that would breach agreements signed under last year’s historic peace deal that ended a decade of civil war in the country.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today named Jan Egeland as his new Special Adviser, and said that he believes the Norwegian will be able to draw on his more than a quarter century of experience in peace processes and humanitarian operations in his new capacity.

A key test of whether the United Nations Human Rights Council is working better than its derided predecessor will be the functioning of the “universal periodic review,” the new mechanism that will allow the records of all countries to be scrutinized, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said today.

A new United Nations-backed Legal Aid Network in Sudan – the first of its kind – brings together paralegals and lawyers seeking to provide pro-bono services to the most at risk and defenceless in the population, the organizers said today.

Welcoming this month’s peace deal between rival political leaders in the divided West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire, the Security Council today urged both sides to implement all their commitments under the accord to ensure that it takes effect.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour today welcomed the Zimbabwean High Court’s order that an opposition leader be provided immediately with all necessary medical treatment and brought before the Court or released after reports that he was seriously injured in police custody.

The head of the United Nations atomic watchdog agency is holding talks this week with officials of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on plans to rid it of nuclear weapons in what he calls “the first step in a long process” toward normalizing relations with a country that ordered UN inspectors out more than four years ago.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres has called for more international cooperation to help hundreds of thousands of Colombian refugees in Ecuador who have fled more than 40 years of fighting between the Colombian Government, leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and criminal gangs.