(Poznan, 3 December 2008): Today, for the first time in climate change negotiations, the humanitarian agencies of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee have teamed up with disaster risk reduction staff of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) system to issue a joint call for scaled-up global action to reduce disaster risk and to strengthen preparedness for effective response.

The current negotiations on risk management and risk reduction in Poznan are a unique opportunity to make sure that adaptation action is able to prevent global humanitarian catastrophe.

Strasbourg, 12.09.2008 - The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, today published his report on the human-rights situation in "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". The Commissioner welcomed the on-going initiatives in the field of human rights protection and in particular the ambitious program of law-making and adoption of action plans on human rights issues. He made a number of recommendations to help strengthen this process, focusing mainly on the judiciary, police behaviour, conditions in places of detention,

This report covers the period of 01/01/2006 to 31/12/2007 of a two-year planning and appeal process.

In brief

Programme summary: The National Societies of central Europe, as part of their health and care activities, set the prevention of HIV and TB as high priorities. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies supported the transfer of skills and knowledge by ensuring that professional medical experts, health institutions, Red Cross volunteers and targeted direct beneficiaries were involved in all phases of the project planning, implementation and

Executive summary

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is mandated to analyse drugs and crime situations around the world. The present report is a contribution to that objective, looking at a region stigmatised for its role in heroin trafficking, human trafficking, and other forms of organised crime. It is based on data gathered though Member States' responses to the United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (CTS) and the United Nations Annual Reports Questionnaire (ARQ), as well as a desk review of the published

Human Rights Council
MIDDAY

The Human Rights Council today held an interactive dialogue with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, and the Independent Expert on the effect of economic reform policies and foreign debt on the enjoyment of human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights.

Hina Jilani, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders, presenting

SKOPJE, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, January 15 (UNHCR) - Membership in The Roma Talents, the one and only refugee band in Suto Orizari, may not make Roki and his friends famous. But they have seized a chance for self-reliance that relatively few Roma refugees have managed.

When I visited them in one of their rented homes in Suto Orizari municipality in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, I recalled the first time I had seen Roki. In 1999 he had arrived in the country as a 12-year-old boy holding his parents' hands and trying to understand the events around him.