Reuters: "The United States is the biggest source of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, and Bush's decision to reject caps under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol discourages involvement by other big-polluting outsiders such as China and India.
After two weeks of talks, about 70 environment ministers in Nairobi agreed on Friday to a 2008 review of Kyoto as a possible prelude to deeper emission cuts by rich nations beyond 2012 and steps by developing countries to brake rising emissions....
"The Sudanese government on Thursday agreed in principle to allow a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force into the war-stricken Darfur region, reversing its longstanding refusal to let United Nations troops in.
The agreement, reached after a day of talks with United Nations officials in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, raised hopes for a more effective peacekeeping effort in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in brutal ethnic and tribal warfare since 2003. A small African Union peacekeeping force has been unable to quell the violence." More
"The head of the United Nations body mandated to protect press freedom today deplored the murder of yet one more Iraqi journalist, saying it was vital to bring an end to "the outrageous campaign of bloodshed" against media professionals in the violence-racked country." More
BBC: "A package of measures, including an enhanced peacekeeping force, aimed at solving the Darfur crisis are to be discussed at UN-led talks in Ethiopia.
Plans for a hybrid African Union (AU)-UN force are among proposals being considered after Sudan refused to allow a UN force to replace AU troops there."
"Elements of Sri Lanka's security forces are helping a breakaway rebel group abduct children to fight the separatist Tamil Tigers, while the rebels themselves continue to use child soldiers in their conflict against the Government, a United Nations adviser has said after a 10-day assessment mission to the strife-torn country. "It is increasingly clear that children are at risk from all sides," Allan Rock, the Special Adviser to the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict on Sri Lanka said yesterday." More
CNN: "Human trafficking, including women forced to become prostitutes or minors forced to do child labor, is worse now than the trade in African slaves of past centuries, a top Vatican official said on Tuesday.
"This trafficking in human beings has intensified, persons put into slavery because they depend on certain criminals who take possession of these human beings," said Cardinal Renato Martino, former longtime Vatican envoy to the United Nations and current head of the Holy See's office concerned with migrant and itinerant peoples."
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BBC: "Lebanon's cabinet has approved draft UN plans for setting up an international tribunal to try suspects in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria has been implicated in the bombing that killed Mr Hariri in February 2005, but denies involvement."
"They are dubbed the 'climate canaries' - the people destined to become the first victims of world climate change. And as government ministers sit down in Nairobi at [the] UN Climate Conference, the people most likely to be wiped out by devastating global warming will be only a few hundred miles away from their deliberations.
"Two Jordanian UN peacekeepers have been shot dead in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, UN officials say. The soldiers are reported to have come under attack near Cite Soleil, a slum where armed street gangs are based." More