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United Nations humanitarian agencies have begun offering aid to the victims of yesterday’s sewage disaster in the Gaza Strip, where the wall of a cesspool collapsed and waste flooded the nearby village of Um Al Nasser, killing at least four people, injuring many others and destroying or damaging dozens of homes.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa by developing Asian economies is on the rise and could potentially reach much higher levels through a shift from commodities to industrial products, according to a new United Nations report which details methods to strengthen development cooperation between the two regions.

The first-ever field mission from the new United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, set up to prevent countries emerging from civil war and other conflicts from slipping back into bloodshed, has returned from Sierra Leone with a clearer idea of the challenges now facing the once strife-torn state, the delegation leader said today.

Following several days of violence in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between Government forces and guards of former Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, United Nations agencies are providing assistance to people in Kinshasa as well as assessing the protection needs of vulnerable groups.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged leaders meeting at the Summit of the League of Arab States to re-affirm their commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative, which he called one of the pillars of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, while stressing that the world must build on the “new stirrings of potential” to resolve the long-running conflict in the Middle East.

A United Nations independent human rights expert on extrajudicial killings today called for action in response to reported incidents in the United States, Iran, the Russian Federation, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Indonesia.

The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today dismissed the appeal of a former Serbian military commander indicted over his role in the 1991 attacks against the world-renowned historical district of the Croatian city, Dubrovnik, after he had contested the decision to refer his case to Serbian authorities.

Commending the efforts of both sides to implement this month’s peace deal between rival political leaders in the divided West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the agreement earlier this week that has led to the appointment of a new prime minister.

Welcoming recent positive developments in Rwanda and other countries of Africa’s Great Lakes region, the United Nations Security Council terminated the requirement that States notify its Committee of the delivery of arms and related materiel to the Government of Rwanda, modifying the sanctions first imposed in 1994 amid widespread ethnic killings that culminated in genocide.

The United Nations and Sudan signed a joint communiqué today in which the Government pledged to support, protect and facilitate all humanitarian operations in the strife-torn Darfur region, where an estimated 4 million people now depend on outside aid.