The Security Council is en route to Sudan ahead of two key referenda on self-determination that are scheduled to be held in the African nation next January.

The 15-member body will stop in Kampala, Uganda followed by Juba, the capital of southern Sudan, El Fasher, in the strife-torn region of Darfur, and finally to the national capital, Khartoum.

United States Ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Susan Rice is leading the delegation to the South and will co-lead the visit to the North.

On January 9, the inhabitants of southern Sudan will vote on whether to secede from the rest of the country, while on the same day the residents of the central area of Abyei will vote on whether to be part of the North or the South.

The referenda will be the final phase in the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the 2005 pact that formally ended two decades of fighting between the northern-based government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in the South.

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For more information on the UN's work in Sudan:

United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS)

African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur (UNAMID)

Security and access top agenda of latest Darfur talks between UN, AU and Sudan

On October 1, the United Nations released a new report on "indescribable" atrocities committed in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from 1993 to 2003, when tens of thousands of people were killed, and numerous others raped and mutilated by both armed Congolese group and foreign military forces.

"The period covered by this report is probably one of the most tragic chapters in the recent history of the DRC," says the report, the most extensive accounting to date, issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The 550-page report, listing 617 of the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law over the 10-year period by both state and non-state actors, is the product of a mapping exercise that took more than two years, including eight months on the ground in the DRC, interviewing witnesses and a wide range of sources.

"Violence in the DRC was, in fact, accompanied by the apparent systematic use of rape and sexual assault allegedly by all combatant forces," the report says. "This report highlights the apparently recurrent, widespread and systematic nature of these phenomena and concludes that the majority of the incidents of sexual violence reported could, if judicially proven, constitute offenses and violations under domestic law, international human rights law, and international humanitarian law."

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The United Nations health agency is partnering with authorities in Bamiyan to increase services for people living in remote areas of the northern Afghan province, which is often inaccessible for months at a time due to harsh winter conditions.

Several districts, including Yakawlang, Panjab, Waras and Kahmard, are cut off by poor weather, which hampers health service delivery and puts the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghans at risk, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO has stepped up its efforts in the province, including to reach women and children with life-saving vaccinations in difficult-to-access areas; to pre-position emergency medical supplies in district hospitals to cover basic health needs of at least 50,000 people; and to revive local income-generating activities that will empower the local population and in turn enable them to l

UN agencies help launch initiative to combat polio and worm infestation

The United Nations refugee agency today cautioned that 11 weeks since the first floods struck Pakistan, large numbers of those affected are still in critical need of continued humanitarian assistance, including many needy people the agency was supporting even before the flood emergency.

In Sindh province in the south, flooding is still occurring, Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters in Geneva, with almost a third of the region's more than 30 million residents affected. About 1.6 million people in Sindh remain displaced.

Mr. Edwards added that UNHCR had assisted some 192,800 flood-displaced people in Sindh with tents, plastic sheeting, and other relief items.

Most of UNHCR's core populations of concern - 1.7 million refugees and 1.1 million people displaced by conflict - are in other regions of Pakistan, namely Balochistan and Khyber Phaktunkhwa.

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The United Nations marked World Teachers' Day on October 5 with top officials calling on governments to make up a projected deficit of more than 10 million teachers by 2015 and stressing the crucial role teachers play in recovery from natural disasters and conflict.

"Without sufficient numbers of well-trained and professionally motivated teachers, we risk falling short of the promise made 10 years ago at the World Education Forum to the world's children and youth [of education for all by 2015], because teachers are at the heart of the education system," the heads of four major UN agencies said.

"Low status, low salary and poor working conditions infringe on the rights of teachers whilst discouraging talented young people from joining and remaining in the teaching profession. The situation must be redressed at a time when the world needs an estimated 10.3 million new teachers to reach internationally-agreed education targets by 2015," read a jointed statement.

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