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The United Nations agency tasked with preserving humanity's cultural heritage today added a selection of new sites situated in various countries around the globe to its World Heritage List, after deciding that they were of outstanding universal value.

Two senior United Nations officials today expressed deep sadness over the deaths of five people, including two contractors for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and three Iraqi officials, who were killed in a bus accident in Jordan yesterday.

United Nations officials have expressed their delight at Sunday’s entry into force of the international convention banning the manufacture, use and stockpiling of cluster munitions, calling it a “major advance for the global disarmament and humanitarian agendas.”

The Horn of Africa is once again free of polio, with Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda having reported no wild poliovirus cases for more than a year, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners announced today.

A senior United Nations official in the Middle East has condemned the firing of a rocket from the Gaza Strip into Israel earlier today and urged restraint by all parties in the wake of the attack.

Officials from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will this weekend begin training and briefing more than 60 international observers who have arrived in the Solomon Islands to monitor parliamentary elections being staged next week.

The United Nations refugee agency today called on Saudi Arabia to halt deportations of Somali refugees and asylum-seekers to the conflict-stricken capital, Mogadishu, where dozens of civilians were killed in escalating clashes this week.

Local authorities in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are reporting that almost 90,000 people have been uprooted from their homes following recent military operations in the region, the United Nations humanitarian arm said today.

United Nations agencies are providing urgent assistance to areas of north-western Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after devastating floods, which have destroyed nearly 300 homes and left an estimated 1,500 people homeless.

With the visit to Lebanon by the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Syria, today could perhaps be a “historic day” for the Middle Eastern country, helping to consolidate stability, a senior United Nations official said today.