The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, says the UN Mission in Afghanistan, known as UNAMA, will play a vital role in President Obama’s plan for increased engagement in the country.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, began distributing winter supplies today in Kabul to 1,500 returnees and internally displaced people.

Afghanistan will need long-term commitment from the international community, the head of the UN Mission in the country told reporters on Tuesday.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria says that through its investments in health programmes in 140 countries, it has saved nearly 5 million lives, since its creation in 2002.

On the eve of World AIDS Day, December 1st, the World Health Organization has revised its recommendations for treatment of HIV/AIDS.

The United Nations is appealing for 7.1 billion dollars to finance its humanitarian operations around the world in 2010. An estimated 48 million people in 25 countries will receive humanitarian assistance. From Geneva Patrick Maigua sent us this report.

The UN is concerned about people displaced by typhoons in the Philippines and for those who are still living in submerged villages and in areas made inaccessible by landslides.

In Madagascar, meteorologists are forecasting that four to five intense cyclones will strike during the approaching cyclone season.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is scaling up deliveries of food to feed thousands of people displaced by inter-ethnic violence around Dongo village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Equateur Province.