Latest News

In an effort to help Sri Lanka recover from two decades of war, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched a school feeding programme for 33,000 children in former battle zones, and plans to expand it to170,000 children next year, the agency announced today.

Five Kosovo prisoners died in a fire and 16 more were hospitalized for burns and smoke inhalation after rioting inmates protesting over general conditions set their mattresses ablaze, a senior United Nations official in the province said today.

The United Nations envoy on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) is scheduled to visit Russia next week, where he will meet with government officials and visit sites hosting internal refugees refugees in Ingushetia and Chechnya.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will continue to consult closely with all parties involved in the “critical” issue of the nuclear weapons programme of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), a statement issued by his spokesman said today.

In his latest report on achieving the goals set by the United Nations Millennium Summit of 2000, Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls on the nations of the world to re-forge their unity after the divisions over the Iraq war and agree among themselves on what are the main threats facing humanity, his spokesman said today.

While war-torn Monrovia remains relatively calm, the crowded streets of the Liberian capital are festering with disease, sanitation is virtually non-existent – the city of 1 million plus has had no regular garbage pickup since 1996 – and clean water stocks are perilously low, according to the United Nations today.

A United Nations regional commission and several countries in Asia and the Pacific are forging ahead with the all-out fight for a barrier-free and inclusive society for persons with disabilities by providing vocational training, employment opportunities and strengthening self-help organizations in the region.

Of all the challenges facing the world from weapons of mass destruction, the total elimination of nuclear weapons must remain the top priority, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in the latest UN Disarmament Yearbook, released today.

The ozone hole in the Antarctic that appears annually at the start of the southern hemisphere spring has grown more rapidly than usual this year, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said today.

Convinced that peace in Liberia is the key to stability in all of West Africa, the top United Nations envoy for the country said today he will ask the Security Council to authorize 15,000 troops to restore order and make last month's ceasefire agreement between government and opposition forces work.