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United Nations and Cambodian officials have agreed on the need to strengthen the UN-backed tribunal trying Khmer Rouge leaders accused of mass killings and other crimes in the south-east Asian country by enhancing its human resources management, including anti-corruption measures.

Cash reserves of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees have plummeted from $60 million in 2006 to just $1 million, enough for less than one day’s average expenditure, a senior official said today, warning of “the very real prospect” of having to make cuts in basic education and health services.

On the day that the United Nations celebrated the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the world body’s new top human rights official brought her own special focus to the issue – as victim and nemesis of abuse.

The United Nations has shipped another convoy of emergency food supplies to the Vanni region of northern Sri Lanka, as part of its ongoing humanitarian aid effort assisting thousands of people forced from their homes by violent conflict.

The United Nations envoy tasked with helping to resolve the conflict that has engulfed the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has expressed satisfaction at progress made in talks between the country’s Government and a leading rebel group, but noted that some issues must be resolved to ensure success.

The United Nations health agency today called on international donors for $6 million to fight Zimbabwe’s worst cholera outbreak in over a decade, with the toll already reaching over 16,140 suspected cases and 775 deaths since August in the impoverished southern African country.

Discrimination and the social exclusion of people living with HIV are undermining efforts to respond to AIDS in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), one of the few areas in the world where incidence continues to rise, according to a United Nations report released today.

The United Nations has called for funding to help meet health needs in areas of Myanmar that are rebuilding after this May’s devastating Cyclone Nargis which claimed some 140,000 lives and left 800,000 others homeless.

The Nepalese army has recommended a resumption of its minefield clearance operation, which it conducts with the assistance of the United Nations Mine Action Team, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters today.

The United Nations General Assembly today awarded its top human rights prize to seven global advocates ranging from a Congolese doctor who treats female victims of sexual violence, a nun who fought for indigenous rights before her murder in Brazil, and the assassinated Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto.