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A United Nations-backed meeting to combat the multi-billion-dollar market for counterfeit medicines today sought to harness technology in the arsenal of weapons used to crack down on the products, which can promote drug resistant strains of disease, worsen medical conditions and kill patients.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today appealed for $1.7 million for a new operation to feed some 30,000 of the poorest Iraqi refugees who are now in Syria after fleeing escalating violence in their own country.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today expressed “deep regret” over Turkey’s deportation of an Iraqi, although the agency had accorded him refugee status and issued him the relevant documentation.

The United Nations refugee agency today called on the Greek authorities to allow the urgent disembarkation and grant access to the asylum system for 16 stowaways found nearly a week ago on a cargo ship docked in the port of Piraeus, near Athens.

Elders, women and youth sang and danced, a cow was slaughtered and officials spoke as the United Nations refugee agency opened two new repatriation corridors from western Ethiopia to south Sudan at the weekend to pave the way home for thousands of Sudanese who fled two decades of civil war that uprooted some 4.5 million people overall.

With more than a quarter of Moldova’s women over 15 years of age having experienced domestic violence, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has welcomed parliament’s decision to adopt a law aimed at preventing and combating the problem, along with setting up rehabilitation centres and providing other support services for the victims.

The United Nations and its humanitarian partners have launched a flash appeal for $17.7 million to support the Mozambican Government’s relief efforts following severe flooding and Cyclone Favio, which together affected hundreds of thousands of people when they struck last month.

The world’s population is on track to surpass 9 billion persons by 2050, according to the newly released 2006 Revision of the official United Nations population estimates and projections, which also predict that the number of elderly persons will hit 1 billion.

The Central African State of Burundi has made progress in protecting children from the ravages of armed conflict, but more still needs to be done, especially to improve detention facilities for minors charged with belonging to armed groups, the top United Nations envoy on children and armed conflict said today.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has suspended its operations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and will withdraw all but two of its international staff by the end of this week over the failure to implement conditions set up following reports that UN funds improperly went to the Government.