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The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) appealed today for $118 million to assist over three million Zimbabweans facing severe food shortages caused by a poor harvest and worsening economic turmoil in the southern African nation.

The newly authorized hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur can serve as a major step towards saving the lives of vulnerable women and girls in the violence-wracked Sudanese region, the head of a UN women’s institute said today.

The top United Nations humanitarian official today announced a grant of $40 million from the world body’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to provide life-saving support in 16 so-called forgotten crises around the world.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon departed New York today for a two-day visit to Haiti, where he will meet with Government officials, as well as representatives from churches, civil society and the private sector.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed an agreement to have a troika comprised of the European Union, Russian Federation and United States lead further negotiations on the future status of Kosovo, the Serbian province administered by the United Nations since 1999.

The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sounded the alarm today over the fate of mountain gorillas living in a national park in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after another four were found slaughtered late last month.

The flag was lowered for the last time yesterday over the United Nations Tajikistan Office of Peace Building (UNTOP), ending the world body’s 15-year political presence in the Central Asian country, first to help halt a civil war that killed over 50,000 people and then to further the consolidation of peace.

Radio broadcasts on Sierra Leone’s upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections will be considerably enhanced thanks to the recruitment of 40 new reporters covering the polling process, the United Nations Integrated Office in the country (UNIOSIL) reported today.

The United Nations-backed tribunal in Cambodia set up to try Khmer Rouge leaders accused of mass killings and other horrific crimes during the late 1970s has issued its first charges against a member of the group.

Dozens of experts from around the world – including representatives from United Nations agencies, religious and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), law enforcement agencies, Government and research institutions – are meeting in Addis Ababa on ways to eradicate the practice of female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C).