News stories by Megan Iacobini de Fazio

City life and access to information technologies can open up a whole new arena of possibilities for young girls: better education, access to healthcare, new skills and a plethora of new ideas.

U.N Secretary General Ban Ki-moon returned Thursday from what has been described as a damage control trip to Rwanda, in an attempt to reassure President Paul Kagame that his concerns over the recently leaked Mapping Exercise report are being heard.

Two weeks before the 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) review summit at the United Nations, concerns are being raised that gender equality is still largely divorced from efforts to address climate change, even though women have a critical role to play in solving - and are often most affected by — the problem.

The first International Day against Nuclear Testing will be marked Sunday by festivities in Astana, Kazakhstan and major cities around the world, with the goal of raising awareness of the importance of banning nuclear tests and to educate people on the catastrophic effects past tests have had on human beings and the environment.

With the discovery of large amounts of oil in the Gulf of Guinea, the small archipelago of Sao Tome and Principe faces the possibility of benefiting from considerable oil revenues. However, a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday documents the difficulties in managing the revenues from the hydrocarbon business in an effective and transparent way.

The U.N. General Assembly met Thursday to express the world community's solidarity with the people of Pakistan and to urge member states to step up their aid commitment to the flood stricken country.

The United Nations and other relief organisations will observe World Humanitarian Day Thursday amid steadily increasing attacks on aid workers.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon returned from Pakistan Monday calling the floods there the worst disaster he has ever witnessed and urging the world community to speed up assistance to the Pakistani people.

Desertification has long been recognised as a major environmental, economic and social problem for countries the world over. But despite major efforts, which started with the United Nations Conference on Desertification (UNOCD) in 1977, the process of land degradation is intensifying.

Although long treated as a problem exclusive to high-income and developed countries, cancer is also a major cause of mortality in the developing world. A group of leading cancer and global health experts is now calling for new strategies to effectively prevent and treat cancer in poor countries.