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The United Nations and its humanitarian partners appealed today for stepped-up action on a global scale to boost preparedness for effectively responding to disasters brought on by climate change.

The top United Nations humanitarian official in Sri Lanka today called on authorities to mount a thorough investigation into last week’s murder of an aid worker in the east of the violence-wracked country – the third staff member from the same relief group to have either disappeared or been killed in the Asian island nation.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today announced a $15 million project to improve the nutrition of a million undernourished children and mothers in seven Asian countries.

The United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has allocated about $3 million to aid nearly 1.5 million people in rural Nepal suffering from rapidly increasing food and fuel prices, the destruction of food stocks and crops by recent floods, and the effects of long-term conflict.

Somalia’s population faces total destitution next year without more effective aid, a United Nations humanitarian official cautioned today, as the many problems in the Horn of Africa country are exacerbated by extremely difficult political and security conditions.

Representatives of around 100 countries gathered in Oslo, Norway, today to sign an historic United Nations-sponsored treaty formally renouncing the use of cluster bombs, a weapon that frequently kills innocent civilians and cripples communities for decades after hostilities have ceased.

A United Nations-backed AIDS conference opened in Dakar, Senegal, today, with participants set to discuss how to sustain progress made in preventing new HIV infections and reaching more people with antiretroviral treatment.

Both the Government and the rebels in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region bear responsibility for the immense humanitarian challenges there, while the rapid deployment of an enhanced United Nations force in neighbouring Chad is vital for improving the lot of refugees, the top UN relief official said today.

Slavery was formally abolished two centuries ago, but some 27 million people are still victims of the scourge, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, warning that the current global economic turmoil could aggravate the situation.

Ministers from more than 40 Asian countries have gathered at a United Nations-backed meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to discuss ways to reduce the social and financial impact of natural disasters in their region.