DURBAN (Agencies) - A marathon UN climate conference on Sunday approved a roadmap towards an accord that for the first time will bring all major greenhouse-gas emitters under a single legal roof, but critics said the action plan was not aggressive enough to slow the pace of global warming. If ...

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - The UN war crimes tribunal for Rwanda found former mayor Gregoire Ndahimana guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity on Thursday for planning the slaughter of more than 2,000 Tutsi refugees in 1994. Ndahimana was sentenced to 15 years in prison, the International ...

UNITED NATIONS - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed Saturday's decision by the Arab League to suspend and impose political an economic sanctions on Syria until the Government ends its crackdown on protesters. In a statement released by his spokesperson, Ban urged Syrian authorities to ...

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has allocated US dollars 17.6 million for urgent help to over five million of the vulnerable families affected by the Pakistans floods, a UN spokesman said on Thursday. The UN has stepped into sustain the humanitarian operations in view ...

VIENNA (AFP) - The United Nations in Vienna raised Wednesday the flag of Libyas National Transitional Council, a month after the international community formally recognised the countrys new leaders, the UN announced. The new green, black and red flag was raised among the colours of the other 192 UN ...

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The United States and European powers stepped up a diplomatic scramble Sunday to avoid a UN showdown on the Palestinian plan to seek full UN membership, which the US administration has vowed to veto. US, European Union, Russian and United Nations officials were all involved ...

ISLAMABAD - The United Nations and Pakistan government appealed for $365 million in foreign donations Sunday to urgently help more than seven million people swamped by a second year of catastrophic floods. One year on from the countrys worst-ever floods that left more than 21 million people in ...

VIENNA (AFP) - The UN atomic agencys board approved Tuesday a global nuclear safety action plan but critics said it falls well short of lofty promises made in the wake of the Fukushima disaster six months ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)s 12-point programme encourages fresh ...

GENEVA (AFP) - At least 2,600 people have been killed in the unrest in Syria since popular protests first broke out in mid-March, the UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said Monday. With regard to Syria, let me note that, according to reliable sources on the ground, the number of those killed since ...

SOPOT, Poland (AFP) - EU foreign ministers on Saturday moved to ease a threat of renewed Middle East tension triggered by a Palestinian bid for full United Nations membership, scheduled less than three weeks away. Speaking at the close of two-day talks in this Polish seaside resort, French Foreign ...

TRIPOLI (AFP) - A special envoy for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Tripoli on Saturday, as the international body and Libya's new leaders stepped up efforts to bring order and democracy to the country. Ian Martin landed at a military airbase in the capital, after Ban said the world ...

UNITED NATIONS - The UN refugee agency Thursday launched a campaign to highlight the plight of up to 12 million stateless people worldwide who are denied basic rights, including access to jobs, housing, education and health care by dint of their lack of citizenship. The stateless may also not be ...

THE HAGUE (AFP) - Former Kosovo prime minister Ramush Haradinaj was back in court Thursday on war crimes charges after appeal judges found witnesses were intimidated during his original 10-month trial. Haradinaj, 43, the most senior Kosovo leader to stand trial at the ICTY, is being retried with ...

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT UNITED NATIONS - The UN said Friday it is ramping up efforts to meet the rising humanitarian needs of an increasing number of famine-stricken Somalis, especially nutrition for children, fleeing their homeland. The number of Somali refugees arriving in the three Dadaab refugee ...

PARIS (Reuters) - Jazz musician Herbie Hancock was appointed a UNESCO goodwill ambassador, pledging to use music to cross cultural boundaries and promote literacy and creativity among youth around the world. The pianist and composer, who has won 14 Grammy awards and seen many of his songs become ...

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT UNITED NATIONS - Millions of women worldwide continue to experience injustice, violence and inequality in their homes, the workplace and public life, according to a new UN report that calls on governments to take urgent action to ensure real equality between the ...

ROME (AFP) - Brazil's former food security minister Jose Graziano da Silva on Sunday became the first Latin American to head the United Nations' food agency, a move hailed by aid groups and the United States. Graziano was elected to lead the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization, beating off ...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Japanese nuclear regulators failed to review and approve steps taken after 2002 to protect against tsunamis at the Fukushima plant and these proved insufficient to prevent the disaster three months ago, a UN report showed. A detailed assessment by an expert team from the ...

UITED NATIONS - Unemployment in the Gaza Strip remains among the highest in the world and real wages have continued to decline every year since Israel imposed a blockade of the area, according to a new UN report. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) report ...

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan will for the first time report to the UN nuclear watchdog that fuel in its crippled Fukushima plant may have melted through the bottoms of three reactor core vessels, a news report said Tuesday. The Yomiuri Shimbun daily report came a day after Japan more than doubled its ...

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - UN chief Ban Ki-moon called on Bahrain's influential crown prince to uphold international rights norms in dealing with opposition protests, a UN spokesman said Saturday. Ban met with Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa and the Gulf state's FM Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa ...

UNITED NATIONS - UN officials Thursday welcomed as an 'important step in the fight against impunity the arrest of Ratko Mladic, the brutal Bosnian Serb general accused of leading the bloody massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Balkan conflicts of 1990. Mladic, the war-time leader of the ...

UNITED NATIONS - A move by the United States and its Western allies aimed at seeking UN Security Council's condemnation of Syria's crackdown against anti-government protesters has failed as it could not muster enough support in the 15-member body. The Western-led effort to agree on a statement ...

UNITED NATIONS The United Nations Security Council has urged Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara to form an all-inclusive, broad-based government now that he is assuming his responsibilities as head of State following the surrender of his predecessor, who had until this week refused to cede ...

VIENNA (Reuters) - The UN atomic watchdog carried out an agreed inspection of a Syrian plant on Friday as part of a long-stalled probe into suspected covert nuclear activity. The inspection is being conducted as planned, an official of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said, ...

MAZAR-I-SHARIF (Agencies) - Afghan protesters angered by the desecration of Quran by an obscure US pastor killed up to 20 UN staff, beheading two foreigners, when they overran a compound in a normally peaceful northern city on Friday in the worst ever attack on the UN in Afghanistan. At least eight ...

UNITED NATIONS - In a new bid to isolate Muammar Gaddafi's regime, the UN General Assembly suspended Libya from its top human rights body as governments worldwide pressured the Libyan leader to halt the deadly crackdown on his people. The 192-member Assembly voted by consensus on a resolution to ...

UNITED NATIONS - Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna faced an awkward moment at the UN Security Council Friday when he began reading the Portuguese foreign ministers speech, instead of Indias, before turning to his text. The occasion was a debate in the 15-member Council on security and ...

LAHORE The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Ms Margaret Sekaggya concluded her two-day visit to Held Jammu and Kashmir a couple of weeks ago amid controlled and limited access. An Indian intelligence officer (DCIO) at Srinagar, probably from Intelligence Bureau disclosed on the ...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Poor data, minimal funding and lax enforcement are undermining the fight to protect endangered species, raising the risks from the spread of pests and diseases, scientists say in a study made public on Friday. Destruction of habitats, over-hunting and climate change have ...