News stories by Aprille Muscara, page 5

On the eve of Monday's highly-anticipated U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in which world leaders will gather here to reaffirm their commitment to the eight goals, civil society remains deeply sceptical.

U.N. member states are expected to pass a resolution Monday that will grant the European Union unprecedented speaking rights during formal meetings of the General Assembly, of which the next session — it's 65th — begins Tuesday.

A document outlining the U.N.'s strategy to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 was finalised Thursday after months of heated negotiations.

In a much-anticipated vote Thursday, the U.N. General Assembly unanimously passed a compromise draft resolution aimed at reopening talks, facilitated by the European Union, between Belgrade and Pristina.

The U.N. Security Council is considering leveraging sanctions against the perpetrators of the mass rapes that occurred last month in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) following a meeting held on the recent violence Tuesday.

Twenty-eight minors have been documented as victims of last month's four-day raid of more than a dozen villages centred around Walikale, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), U.N. officials told reporters here today. Children, including one 12-years old boy were identified. The Walikale victim toll has risen to over 240.

The number of women raped by rebel groups during last month’s raid of more than a dozen villages centred around Walikale, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has risen to over 240, U.N. officials told reporters here today.

Aid groups and U.N. agencies are raising the alarm over the vulnerability of pregnant women and babies in flood ravaged Pakistan.

Thirty-four years ago, Canada was one of the first Western countries to abolish the death penalty. In 1987, the question of capital punishment and whether it should be reinstated resurfaced in the House of Commons.

As details emerged this week of the U.N.'s knowledge of rebel activity in the villages where nearly 200 women were systematically gang raped by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) late last month, human rights groups are demanding an investigation into the U.N.'s failure to prevent the raid from occurring.