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The number of Rwandans laying down their arms and leaving militias that terrorize civilians in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has multiplied four-fold on a monthly basis compared to last year, the United Nations reported today.

Global solidarity is critical if a pandemic of swine flu is indeed imminent, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, as he made an unscheduled press appearance to lay out the rapid United Nations response to the new threat.

The United Nations refugee agency today began an emergency airlift operation targeting the some 150,000 people uprooted by intense armed conflict between Government forces and separatist Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka, as the world body’s top relief official continues his visit to the South Asian nation.

With increasing numbers of people contracting the deadly swine flu virus, the United Nations health agency today elevated the international pandemic alert to phase 4, on a six-point scale, for the first time since the current warning system was introduced in 2005 in response to the avian influenza crisis.

The top United Nations humanitarian official arrived in Sri Lanka on The top United Nations humanitarian official arrived in Sri Lanka on Sunday to press for the release of tens of thousands of civilians still confined to a shrinking pocket of land on the country's north-east coast, which has been fiercely defended by separatist Tamil rebels against a Government military offensive since December.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged the international community to redouble its efforts to ensure that every person at risk of catching malaria has access to a mosquito net by 2010, in a message marking World Malaria Day.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be in a crowd of supporters cheering on two teams of United Nations Ambassadors in New York this evening as they forget diplomacy and go head-to-head using only their football skills in a fundraising soccer match.

The United Nations Security Council today joined Secretary-General Ki-moon in condemning in the “strongest terms” the back-to-back suicide bombings in Baghdad and Diyala in the last few days.

The head of the United Nations health agency today warned that the recent outbreak of a deadly new strain of the flu virus, known as swine flu, reported in parts of Mexico and the United States, has the potential to become a pandemic.

On the heels of donors pledging over $200 million for Somalia yesterday, a United Nations human rights expert stressed that these funds could greatly help protect civilians in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation and bolster its security forces.