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The United Nations Secretary-General and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today both expressed deep shock and sadness over a fatal confrontation in Cairo between Egyptian police and Sudanese protesters who have been demanding resettlement to third countries and better living conditions.

With its latest donation of 4 million euros for Pakistan relief efforts, the European Commission (EC) has provided its largest annual contribution – some 214 million euros – since 1992 to saving lives and feeding the hungry through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the agency said today.

Locust breeding is slow now but is expected to accelerate in the months ahead, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a new bulletin on the crop-destroying pests issued today.

Voicing serious concern that fighting could escalate in Nepal after the impending expiration of the unilateral ceasefire declared by Comunist rebels, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today urged a truce with the country’s Government.

The senior United Nations envoy to Kosovo today said the coming year will likely see the end of the process to determine the status of the ethnically divided Serbian province which the world body has administered since 1999.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today welcomed the full withdrawal of Indonesian troops from the strife-torn Aceh province, which has seen nearly 30 years of separatist conflict.

Despite clashes between Chadian forces and armed groups along the Sudanese border in recent weeks, humanitarian workers continue offering aid to refugees living in camps in eastern Chad, home to some 200,000 people who have fled the Darfur region, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said today.

With the peacekeeping United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) ending its mandate tomorrow, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today noted its successes and pledged that the UN would remain active in the West African country, helping the Government and people to address the root causes of a brutal civil war and to rebuild national capacity.

The military situation in the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) separating Ethiopia and Eritrea remains “tense and potentially volatile,” a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission there, which has been forced to relocate some staff because of Eritrean demands, said today.

In the face of deadly clashes between United Nations peacekeepers and armed rebel groups in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Secretary-General Kofi Annan today reaffirmed the UN’s determination to work closely with the Congolese authorities in restoring peace in the region.