Ban tells Iran's Ahmadinejad to restore global trust in nuclear program
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon personally urged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to restore international trust in the peaceful nature of his country's nuclear program by adhering to the resolutions of the Security Council and the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency.
At a May 3 meeting requested by Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is in New York to attend the five-yearly review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Mr. Ban urged the resumption of talks between Iran and a group of six countries - China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom and United States - aimed at resolving issues over a program that some countries contend is intended to develop a nuclear weapons capacity.
Iran says the program is for purely peaceful energy production but earlier Mr. Ban told the NPT conference that it was up to Iran to take the initiative.
"Let me be clear: the onus is on Iran to clarify the doubts and concerns of its program," he said. In response, Mr. Ahmadinejad told the conference no credible proof had been provided that Iran had anything but peaceful intentions.
The issue has been of international concern since the discovery in 2003 that Iran had concealed its nuclear activities for nearly two decades in breach of its obligations under the NPT.
The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly stated that it cannot confirm that all Iran's nuclear material is for peaceful activities because the country has not provided the necessary cooperation.
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UN presence in DR Congo crucial despite call for early withdrawal, says relief chief
The top United Nations humanitarian official has stressed the need for UN peacekeepers to remain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) beyond the August 2011 deadline set by the government.
"The situation in the DRC remains complex, and the humanitarian needs very high, with grave protection concerns continuing to affect people in the eastern, northeastern and northwestern parts of the country, causing large-scale suffering to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people," Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said after ending a five-day visit to the country.
Fresh from visits to the strife-torn Kivu provinces in the east, where he denounced "horrific" atrocities committed by the notorious Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army, and northwestern Equateur Province where he condemned the decapitation and other brutal killings of civilians in inter-communal strife, Mr. Holmes stressed to President Joseph Kabila the need for the continued presence of the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC).
In a report to the Security Council last month, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the UN disagreed with the government's proposed date of August 2011 for the withdrawal of the 11-year-old force, which has helped restore a measure of stability and democratic process to a country torn apart by years of civil war and revolts that led to the greatest death toll since World War II - 4 million people killed by fighting and the attendant starvation and disease.
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Sudan: UN mission to remain for another year to support north-south peace pact
The Security Council has extended for another year the mandate of the United Nations mission supporting the 2005 agreement that ended the decades-long north-south civil war in Sudan, stressing the need to complete all remaining tasks under the peace pact.
In a unanimously adopted resolution on April 29, the 15-member body decided to extend the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) until April, 30, 2011, "with the intention to renew it for further periods as may be required."
The Council stressed the importance of the "full and expeditious" implementation of all elements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended 20 years of fighting between the Sudanese People's Liberation Army separatists in the south and the national Government in the north.
The parties achieved a key milestone of the agreement - which ended a conflict in which at least 2 million people were killed and some 4.5 million more driven from their homes - with the holding of national elections earlier this month, the first of their kind in 24 years.
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UN Pavilion opens at World Expo 2010 in Shanghai
Focusing on the theme "One Earth, One United Nations," the UN hopes to showcase the breadth of its work at its state-of-the-art pavilion the World Exposition in Shanghai, China, where 70 million people are expected to visit.
Divided into three main areas, the 32,000-square-foot pavilion was designed to be a spectacle of LCD monitors and colorful multi-media technological exhibits.
The theme of the Expo is "Better City, Better Life," recognizing that more than half of the world's population in now urban and growing rapidly, and has particular significance for China, home to nearly one quarter of the world's 1,000 largest cities.
One of the biggest exhibits in the pavilion is called "6 Billion Others." Featuring hundreds of television screens showing clips from a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, it shows how more than 600 people and communities in 17 countries are confronting climate challenge.
This year's Expo is the first to be held in a developing country.
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Week in Pictures
Abducted UNAMID Peacekeepers Released After Almost Two Weeks
April 26 - Ibrahim Gambari (center), Joint Special Representative for the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), embraces two South African UNAMID peacekeepers, who along with two colleagues, were abducted two weeks ago near their private quarters in South Darfur. Mr. Gambari traveled to Nyala to meet the staff members, all of whom were released. Behind Mr. Gambari are Mohamed Yonis (second from left), his Deputy for Operations and Management, and Micheal J. Fryer (left), UNAMID Police Commissioner. UN Photo/Olivier Chassot
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Queen of Jordan Presents Children's Book at UN Headquarters
April 27 - Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (center) reads from her children's book on cross-cultural understanding, "The Sandwich Swap," to a group of young students from the United Nations International School (UNIS) at UN headquarters in New York. UN Photo/Mark Garten
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