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Some 250,000 Kenyans are now estimated to have been displaced by post-electoral violence, United Nations humanitarian officials reported today, as the world body’s independent human rights experts voiced deep concern at the ethnic dimension of the conflict.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is assisting the Government in a new sensitization campaign encouraging all remaining armed groups in North and South Kivu provinces – where fighting has escalated in recent months leading to a dire humanitarian situation – to surrender.

Expressing sadness that the United Nations and its staff have become targets of terrorist attacks, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has underscored that the world body stands for all the nations, people and faiths of the world.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today paid tribute to Bert Bolin – a pioneering scientist on global warming and co-founder of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – who has passed away at the age of 82.

An investigation by the United Nations human rights office has found that serious abuses – including the use of excessive force, illegal detentions and summary executions – took place during clashes between Government forces and guards of former Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa last March.

Peacekeeping, pre-emptive diplomacy, climate change and improving the lot of poor countries, as well as internal reform, will be high on the United Nations agenda for 2008, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.

Realizing that it takes more than just having a computer in the classroom to enable teachers to pass on the skills students need to do well in today’s world, the United Nations has developed new guidelines to help instructors better use information and communication technology (ICT) in education.

The United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) launched a new programme today to train instructors for Chadian police to help victims in the country’s east of the crisis in Sudan’s war-wracked Darfur region.

Secretary-General has underscored the urgent need for a political solution to end the bloodshed in Sri Lanka following the Government’s decision to terminate the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement that halted a decades-long conflict with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is supporting the Government in security preparations for an upcoming conference aimed at bringing peace and development to the troubled eastern region of the vast African nation.