UN

10 August 2007 -- United Nations Disaster Reduction officials say the effects of climate change are having a dangerous impact now and governments must urgently take action to protect their communities from floods and other hazards provoked by extreme weather. They say steps must be taken to reduce current risks and to prepare for a worsening future under a changed climate. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.    » read more »

Georgia was calling for a high-level investigation by the United Nations Security Council of Monday’s violation of Georgia’s airspace by two Russian aircraft, and inviting the European Union and other partners to verify that unprovoked use of force, that country’s Charge d’Affairs, Irakli Chikovani, said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.    » read more »

08 August 2007 -- Georgia is urging the United Nations Security Council to convene an emergency meeting to address Russia's alleged missile firing and violation of Georgian airspace.

Georgia's deputy representative, Irakli Chikovani, says his nation has proof that two Russian fighter jets entered more than 75 kilometers into Georgian territory and launched a guided missile. Georgian officials say that weapon landed by a house near the rebel Georgian province of South Ossetia, but did not explode.    » read more »

07 August 2007 -- The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says climate change may hurt food production in tropical areas.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf told an audience in India Tuesday that crop yields will probably fall in the seasonally dry tropics as global average temperatures rise. He said agriculture dependent on rain in semi-arid regions is particularly at risk.

He also said India might lose nearly one-fifth of its rain-fed cereal production.    » read more »

August 1, 2007 -- Washington, DC – Last night, just hours after the U.N. Security Council announced its decision to authorize the deployment of peacekeeping troops to Darfur, the Senate passed a bipartisan resolution (S. Res. 276) sponsored by Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE) and Ranking Member Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) which calls for the immediate deployment of a peacekeeping mission to Darfur and lays out benchmarks for that mission.    » read more »

July 17, 2007 -- Washington, D.C. –United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon today told U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) that it would mean a great deal to the fight against global warming if President Bush would attend a special high-level meeting on the topic at United Nations headquarters in New York on September 24, 2007.    » read more »

09 July 2007 -- The World Health Organization reports there are at least 130,000 new cases every year of malignant melanoma, the most fatal type of skin cancer, and more than two million cases of other types of skin cancer. Because most skin cancers are traced to too much exposure to the sun, many people have begun using sunscreen creams when they go outdoors. But do those lotions really work?

A relaxing day at the beach. But while the sun feels good, ultraviolet light is damaging the skin's elasticity.    » read more »

06 July 2007 -- The World Health Organization and its partners say up to half a million African infants die the day they are born. Health experts say nearly a million babies could be saved in sub-Saharan Africa with a few low-cost interventions.

Among the devices that can save lives are kits that help provide a clean environment for childbirth, a dose of the AIDS drug nevirapine to an infant within three days of birth and resuscitators to help clear a newborn’s lungs and promote breathing.    » read more »

06 July 2007 -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees -- or UNHCR -- estimates there are now 1.2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, 750,000 in Jordan, 100,000 in Egypt, 54,000 in Iran, 40,000 in Lebanon, and 10,000 in Turkey. That does not include an estimated 1.9 million Iraqis who are internally displaced inside Iraq.    » read more »

07 July 2007 -- The U.N. food program says Kenya has allowed about 60 of its trucks to cross into Somalia after a wait of several weeks.

The World Food Program said Friday the trucks were allowed to cross the border this week following appeals from the international community.

The agency says there are still about 80 food trucks on the border and it hopes they will be allowed to cross soon.

Kenya closed its border with Somalia in January during fighting that pitted Islamic militia against Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies.    » read more »

03 July 2007 -- U.N. agencies say that Mozambique is undergoing a severe drought. They say hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people will need increased humanitarian assistance over the coming months to help them survive until next year's harvest in April.

Mozambique has been lurching from one natural disaster to another. The current drought follows heavy flooding and a devastating cyclone earlier this year. Those disasters affected hundreds of thousands of people. Homes, crops and livelihoods were destroyed.    » read more »

June 27, 2007 -- Washington, DC – The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed Chairman Joe Biden’s (D-DE) legislation today that would allow the United States to fully pay its dues to UN Peacekeeping missions, and ensure that we do not accrue additional debt through 2008.    » read more »

27 June 2007 -- A UN agency says humanity will have to undergo a “revolution in thinking” to deal with a doubling of urban populations in Africa and Asia.

The UN Population Fund says the number of people in African and Asian cities will grow by 1.7 billion by the year 2030. And worldwide, the number of city dwellers will reach five billion or 60 percent of the world’s population.    » read more »

26 June 2007 -- The following is the text of UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro’s address to the seventh Global Forum on Reinventing Government, as delivered in Vienna, today, 26 June:    » read more »

26 June 2007 -- Afghanistan's poppy harvest is growing rapidly and this year's yield could exceed last year's record crop. Top counter narcotics officials from the United States and Britain say Afghanistan's growing trade in illegal drugs is firmly linked to the Taleban insurgency.

In the recently released World Drug Report, the United Nations says Afghanistan produced dramatically more opium in 2006, increasing its yield nearly 50 percent from the previous year.

The report says more than 90 percent of the world's heroin now comes from poppies grown in Afghanistan.    » read more »