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The third and final convoy of southern Sudanese refugees from the Yarenja camp in western Ethiopia returned home this week, completing a United Nations-supervised programme to repatriate 1,500 people from the isolated camp.

The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) for six more months while asking Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to report on plans to draw down the level of blue helmets there.

Anna Politkovskaya, the esteemed Russian journalist and outspoken human rights campaigner who was killed last October, will be awarded the prestigious 2007 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, the first time the honour has been bestowed posthumously in its 10-year history.

The top United Nations humanitarian official today announced plans to step up relief efforts in the strife-torn Central African Republic (CAR), hours after meeting some of the scores of thousands of people who fled their homes and are now living in the bush to escape rebel attacks and fighting with Government forces.

In Malawi – where 16 women die every day giving birth or during pregnancy – the Government today kicked off a United Nations-backed campaign to combat maternal and infant death.

Specialized United Nations police units from Bangladesh and India were instrumental in saving civilian lives amidst heavy fighting during last week’s violence in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The United Nations Human Rights Council today agreed to set up a group of independent rights experts to work with the Sudanese Government and the African Union (AU) to monitor the situation on the ground in the war-torn Darfur region.

The Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with a landmark treaty on civil and political rights, today concluded a session held at United Nations Headquarters in New York after reviewing reports by Madagascar.

Eighty-one Member States and the European Community signed a landmark new treaty today at the United Nations that aims to improve the lives of the world’s estimated 650 million people with disabilities, a record for the first day of signature of any convention.

The right mix of appropriate government regulation, greater use of energy saving technologies and behavioural change can substantially reduce global-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the building sector, which accounts for 30 to 40 per cent of total energy use, according to a United Nations reported released today.