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The United Nations experts tasked with assisting families determine the fate or whereabouts of disappeared relatives is urging States to define enforced disappearances as a crime and to help bring the international treaty dealing with this scourge into force.

The recent murder of a radio journalist in Honduras brings to nine the number of media professionals killed there so far this year, and prompted a senior United Nations official to call for urgent action to stem the rise in violence against members of the press.

In an effort to assess the effectiveness of polio surveillance in Afghanistan, a group of experts from the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) have spent a week in villages across the country examining a system used to detect the paralysing disease in children under the age of 15.

About 10,000 civil servants in the Mexican capital will receive specialist training in disaster risk reduction under a United Nations-backed initiative to better protect the city, which is vulnerable to devastating earthquakes.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the head of the United Nations-backed panel tasked with preparing scientific reports on the impact of climate change today welcomed the findings of an independent review which called for major changes in management and procedures to enable the group to strengthen the quality of its assessments.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today voiced his support for the 33 miners in northern Chile who have been trapped underground for more than three weeks.

Providing health services to millions of people affected by the massive flooding in Pakistan remains a priority for humanitarian agencies, as a large numbers of those affected by the disaster continue to seek treatment for diseases such as diarrhoea, skin infections, respiratory problems and malaria, the United Nations health agency says.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon heads tomorrow to Austria and Liechtenstein for a week-long official visit that will focus on global governance, European issues and United Nations affairs.

The top United Nations envoy to Lebanon has met with that country’s Prime Minister as part of his continuing efforts to promote stability and dialogue in the Middle Eastern nation.

The United Nations humanitarian arm is seeking urgent assistance for Niger, where recent flooding has displaced nearly 200,000 people and aggravated a food crisis in which almost half of the country’s 15 million people are experiencing hunger.