Full Coverage: United Nations

28.07.2005 Twenty-four hours after UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special envoy on human settlements called for an immediate end to demolitions and evictions in Zimbabwe, thousands of people on a settlement 20 kilometres from the capital watched helplessly as bulldozers destroyed their homes for the second time in a month.

28.07.2005 In 50 days time, world leaders have the opportunity to prevent food crises like Niger ever happening again by setting up a UN emergency fund, says Oxfam.

28.07.2005 The U.N. took what has been called "a decisive step in the right direction" Monday, passing a resolution requiring governments and armed groups to end the use of child soldiers and report on grave violations against children.

27.07.2005 With general elections scheduled for October, the interim Government of Haiti and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today wrapped up a two-day workshop bringing together all political factions and civil society to discuss the environment, the budget and anti-poverty strategies, with a view to making a peaceful transition, the UN mission said.

27.07.2005 Today the Secretariat of the Political Forum of Kosovo will propose members for the working groups that will prepare for talks on Kosovo’s final status.

27.07.2005 The inclusion of the Old Bridge in Mostar and the Old City on UNESCO’s list of world cultural heritage is a huge achievement for Bosnia and Herzegovina and introduces a brighter future for B&H cultural heritage, concluded the round-table discussion “Mostar – Global Cultural Heritage: Perspectives for the Coming 10 Years”.

26.07.2005 Aiming to outline a new strategy for United Nations-backed development projects in Bangladesh, more than one hundred national experts and representatives of UN agencies wrapped up a series of roundtables and workshops today in Dhaka the capital, focused on helping the rural population to fight poverty.

25.07.2005 Some 1.6 million people die per year because more than 2 billion people in developing countries lack the modern fuels and electricity that help prevent indoor air pollution and its negative health effects, a new United Nations report says.

25.07.2005 A stinging U.N. report released Friday condemns President Mugabe's urban clean-up operation, saying it was carried out "with indifference to human suffering," and was a breach of both national and international human rights law. The report calls for an immediate halt of the demolitions, urging the government to pay reparations to the affected and punish those who carried out the forced evictions.

22.07.2005 Ce que proposent les journées Alternatives 2005 : Créer des espaces pour débattre des luttes et des solidarités qui nous animent, en démontrant comment chacune de ces batailles, aussi locale soit-elle, s’inscrit dans une résistance globale pour le bien commun. Parce qu’en renforçant notre mouvement social ici, en préparant nos batailles et en consolidant nos solidarités au Québec et au Canada, c’est à un mouvement global que nous contribuons.

22.07.2005 Faced with a funding shortfall for Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region, the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization has appealed for $8 million to provide vulnerable families with agricultural supplies and seeds so they can produce their own food, a more effective strategy than providing food aid because it gives people an incentive to stay on the land and provides food for several months.

20.07.2005 A new UNAIDS report - ON THE FRONT LINE A review of policies and programmes to address AIDS among peacekeepers and uniformed services - encourages stronger international cooperation to develop long-term strategies for HIV prevention, testing and counseling, and HIV treatment for personnel deployed in international peacekeeping operations as well as national uniformed services.

19.07.2005 U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, in Sierra Leone to survey the efforts being made to build effective systems for protecting human rights, said it was "time for justice to follow its course," calling for former Liberian president Charles Taylor to be arrested in Nigeria to face war crimes charges at the U.N.-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone.

19.07.2005 The World Bank Office to B&H congratulated the citizens of Mostar on the decision by the UNESCO Committee on World Heritage to list the Old Bridge and the historical quarters of the city into the list of world monuments of cultural heritage.

18.07.2005 Since former president of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide, was ousted from power last year, people in pro-Aristide neighborhoods in the capital, Port-au-Prince, have faced extreme repression at the hands of Haitian police. U.S.-based human rights and trade union activists say they have evidence proving that U.N. military forces carried out a "massacre" in Cite Soleil on Jul. 6, and would like the U.N. to investigate.

18.07.2005 French journalist Jean Hatzfeld and Lt General Romeo Dallaire, former head of the UN Peacekeeping forces in Rwanda and author of Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, will discuss their experiences of the genocide 11 years ago. Foyles Bookshop, London, 30 August. Call 0870 420 2777 to reserve. Ticket sales will be donated to Survivors Fund.

15.07.2005 KFOR will not bring reinforcements to Kosovo in the next few months, when the discussion of the final status of the province is expected to begin, KFOR spokesman Col. De Kersabie said at a news conference in Pristina on July 13.

14.07.2005 A new UN agreement on a system to track small arms and light weapons is toothless and riddled with loopholes, according to the Control Arms campaign.

14.07.2005 An expert working group is to be set up by the UN to decide how to respond to the threat of climate change to World Heritage sites around the world.

14.07.2005 Violence against civilians is escalating, reports Medecins Sans Frontieres in Haiti, despite the U.N.'s bolstering of its "Stabilization" Mission in the country by 1,000 soldiers. The group is calling on all armed groups in the city to respect the safety of civilians and allow immediate access to emergency medical care for those wounded in clashes.