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From peacekeepers in Darfur escorting women and girls to prevent “firewood rapes” to blue helmets in Kosovo setting up an emergency hotline for at-risk communities and lone women, the United Nations launched today its first compilation of the best practices of its staff to prevent, deter and respond to the use of rape as a war tactic.

Security will be a major challenge in what is gearing up as a critical period for Afghanistan, which will be hosting a major international conference in the capital next month and holding parliamentary elections in September, the top United Nations envoy there said today.

The role of culture in promoting the empowerment of women and upholding human rights was hotly debated today by senior United Nations officials, activists and academics as the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) meets in New York to push for women and girls to be at the forefront of efforts to achieve development targets.

The Security Council today agreed to renew the mandate of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), its peacekeeping operation in the Golan Heights, for another six months.

The actor Jeremy Renner, who shot to fame playing a bomb disposal expert in the Academy Award-winning film The Hurt Locker, has wrapped up a five-day visit to Afghanistan to highlight the real-life efforts of the United Nations to remove landmines from the war-scarred country.

An independent United Nations expert today urged Israel to prevent further rights violations in East Jerusalem, warning that population transfers in or from occupied territory are war crimes under international law.

Elderly people have an ally in the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO), which today launched a new scheme to ensure that they can remain active and healthy in the world’s cities.

The United Nations has confirmed that one of its vehicles was shot at this morning in the Afghan capital, Kabul, resulting in the death of one staff member.

Two warring tribes in Sudan’s Darfur region have signed a United Nations-facilitated reconciliation agreement aimed at ending nearly four months of violent clashes that have killed more than 200 people and displaced hundreds of others from their villages.

Fewer than 400 of the estimated 100,000 refugees who fled when violence erupted in Kyrgyzstan nearly three weeks ago remain in Uzbekistan, the United Nations reported today, warning that that most of the returnees and the people who are internally displaced have no proper shelter after their homes were destroyed during the unrest.