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United Nations officials, government leaders and education experts are gathering in Kathmandu, Nepal, today for the start of a two-day conference examining how to improve gender equality in schools across the Asia-Pacific region.

New funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will help to improve the quality of statistical information in 17 sub-Saharan African countries, contributing to efforts to reduce hunger and poverty in the region, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

The Government of Sri Lanka needs to stamp out a recent wave of disappearances in which women and humanitarian aid workers are among those who have gone missing, a group of United Nations human rights experts said today.

United Nations officials in Sudan have expressed their sorrow at last night’s plane crash at the international airport in the capital, Khartoum, that media reports say has killed at least 29 people.

The Security Council, concerned at the “high level of opium cultivation, production and trafficking” in Afghanistan, today called on States to bolster cooperation to counter this illicit practice which is thwarting the country’s security and development.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today opened a high-level meeting between Equatorial Guinea and Gabon to launch the next phase of the mediation process aimed at resolving a border dispute between the African neighbours.

The Prosecutor of the United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the worst crimes committed during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s has welcomed today’s announcement that indicted Bosnian war crimes suspect Stojan Župljanin had been arrested.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Justice Kate O’Regan of South Africa as the fifth member and chairperson of the Internal Justice Council – established by the General Assembly to help ensure independence, professionalism and accountability in the new system of administration of justice at the United Nations.

The number of grave human rights violations against children in Somalia, from acts of murder and rape to the recruitment of child soldiers to the denial of humanitarian access to those in need, have all increased in the past year, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in a new report to the Security Council.

The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs opened a workshop today in Rio de Janeiro to help governments trace illicit small arms and light weapons.