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A United Nations conference on indigenous affairs wrapped up its two-week gathering today, making a host of recommendations, including the worldwide establishment of a mechanism requiring patent offices to publicize the origins of products derived from indigenous knowledge when exclusive rights to the design are requested.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed today''s adoption by the Conference on Disarmament – the world''s sole multilateral forum for disarmament negotiations – of a Programme of Work for its 2009 session.

The United Nations-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today welcomed Australia’s decision to join an innovative debt conversion scheme which enables poor countries to free up more resources to fight the three deadly diseases.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Italian Government have agreed on a $5.2 million programme to improve long-term food security for 32,000 poor fishing and farming families in Myanmar whose livelihoods were disrupted by last year’s Cyclone Nargis.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) today launched an AIDS awareness and help campaign for inmates in Becora prison in Dili, Timor-Leste.

Over half a million Colombians in some of the nation’s remotest conflict zones have been able to obtain identification papers over the past five years thanks to mobile registration units supported by the United Nations refugee agency.

A new Japanese television drama hopes to reel in millions of viewers every week to follow the life and loves of a United Nations worker while also raising awareness of the world body’s work in assisting refugees around the world.

The United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) today issued an order leaving former Chadian president Hissène Habré in the custody of Senegal, where he is under house arrest for alleged war crimes.

African nations will be hit hard by the global economic crisis during the course of 2009, the United Nations and the African Union (AU) say in a new report, which stresses the need to focus on agriculture, the mainstay of economies on the continent.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today strongly condemned the continuing armed attacks against Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, expressing concern at the growing numbers of civilians killed, wounded and displaced by the violence.