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As the United Nations officially launched the International Year of Biodiversity today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called the failure to protect the world’s natural resources a “wake-up call” and urged each country and each person to engage in a global alliance to protect life on Earth.

Senior United Nations humanitarian official Catherine Bragg today begins a four-day mission to Egypt and Syria to boost the world body’s partnerships with actors in the region.

The United Nations and regional organizations will seek to further enhance their burgeoning cooperation in peacemaking and peacekeeping, conflict prevention and crisis management at a high-level two-day retreat beginning today outside New York City, hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

United Nations Messenger of Peace Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein of Jordan blinked back tears as Elizabeth Wanjira, a child living in a slum in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, told her how the meal she eats at school is often the only food she will eat throughout the day.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today outlined seven priorities for 2010, beginning with the urgent need for a renewed focus on sustainable development, including advancing efforts to achieve the globally agreed targets aimed at ending poverty, disease and hunger.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today that Southern Sudan is facing a massive food deficit fuelled by drought and widespread insecurity.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon has strongly protested to Israel over the significant number of over-flights in Lebanese airspace during the last few days in violation of a Security Council resolution ending the 34-day war between Israel and Hizbollah militants in 2006.

A new fund managed by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) today announced over $9 million in grants to support initiatives in 26 countries to empower women, ranging from boosting their political participation in Bosnia and Herzegovina to assisting those denied inheritance and property rights in Afghanistan.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon used today's fifth anniversary of the peace pact that ended more than 20 years of civil war in Sudan to urge the parties to redouble their efforts towards reconciliation and the successful completion of remaining benchmarks.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog and the European Commission have reached agreement on arrangements to apply ‘integrated safeguards’ in all non-nuclear-weapon States of the European Union that have significant nuclear activities.