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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today spoke by telephone with the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and expressed his sadness and shock to the head of State at the attack on the United Nations offices in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif that resulted in the death of three UN staff and four security guards.

Four soldiers serving with the United Nations peacekeeping force in Côte d'Ivoire were seriously wounded today when they came under attack by forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, a day after the UN troops repulsed another assault by the same armed group.

The head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today the agency is facing a huge deficit in the funds required to continue to assist more than five million people in five countries in the Horn of Africa who are experiencing severe food shortages as a result of a prolonged drought.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today spoke by telephone to senior officials of the governments of Nepal, Norway, Sweden and Romania to express his deep condolences following the deaths of their citizens in the attack on the United Nations compound in northern Afghanistan yesterday.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said he was fascinated by how Kenya is tapping the volcanic heat of the Great Rift Valley to generate electricity, saying the East African country may be on the way to becoming sufficient in low-carbon and resource-efficient energy to power a “green economy”.

The United Nations humanitarian chief warned today that years of investment in Liberia's peace and security could be jeopardized if the international community does not provide sufficient resources to help the country bear the burden of caring for refugees from neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire.

The United Nations human rights office today urged forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the internationally-recognized president of Côte d’Ivoire, to show restraint after reports suggested they have been committing serious rights violations during their advance towards the country’s commercial capital of Abidjan.

The Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have strongly condemned today’s attack in Afghanistan in which a large crowd of demonstrators angry at the burning of a copy of the Koran by a United States group stormed a United Nations compound and killed a number of people, including three UN staff members.

The head of the United Nations refugee agency has concluded a two-day visit to Egypt to review the response to the humanitarian crisis sparked by the unrest in Libya, as his office voiced concern that thousands of people could be trapped in areas where fighting is taking place.

United Nations experts have recommended that two pesticides, one severely hazardous pesticide formulation and three industrial chemicals be added to a trade “watch list” under a UN-backed treaty aimed at helping poorer countries more effectively manage potentially harmful imported substances.