The British government will help 5,000 people escape the besieged rebel-held town of Misrata and provide vital medical supplies to those caught up in violence across western Libya, Britain's International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell announced today.

ASIA is “missing” about 96 million women – the vast majority in China and India – who died from discriminatory healthcare and neglect or who were never born at all, the UN has estimated.

The rescues of two more people from beneath the rubble in Haiti’s stricken capital 10 days after the devastating earthquake have revived fading hopes that others may have survived, officials said today.

TWO of the world’s greatest footballers — Zinedine Zidane and Kaka — will take part in a match to support relief efforts in Haiti.

Ireland ranks fifth in the world in terms of quality of life, according to a UN report released today.

AS thousands of groups in 140 countries gathered to mark World Population Day yesterday, the United Nations has called for more action to promote women’s rights and reduce the millions of deaths resulting from unwanted pregnancies.

FRANCE and the Netherlands reacted swiftly on Saturday to a newly signed peace accord in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the latter announcing millions of euro in aid to help stabilise the troubled east.

Overburdened relief centres were attempting to deliver aid to tens of thousands of cyclone survivors in Bangladesh today as authorities tracked an outbreak of waterborne illness that reportedly left two children dead.

In a comprehensive audit of Irish democracy, the Think-tank for Action on Social Change (TASC) notes that the health of a democracy is largely dependent on public satisfaction.

A United Nations agency said today it has organised a lottery offering the possibility of prizes like DVD players or refrigerators when illegal weapons left over from the Bosnian war are handed in to authorities.

Wildlife experts are celebrating the sightings of two groups of rare Asiatic cheetahs in central Iran during recent months, raising hopes that one of the world’s fastest moving creatures could be saved from extinction, conservation officials said today.

OVER the next decade, two million children will die, 40 million people will be without safe drinking water, and five million children will be forced out of school if current trends continue in 14 countries across Asia and the Pacific that are among the world’s least developed, a UN report said yesterday.

BRAZILIAN soccer star Ronaldo received a warm welcome in the Palestinian city of Ramallah yesterday.

Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo received a warm welcome in the Palestinian city of Ramallah today, with hundreds of residents jostling to get a glimpse of their hero during a goodwill visit that left even the normally serious Palestinian prime minister grinning like an excited schoolboy.

The UN launched an “adopt an island” programme today to help tsunami victims rebuild their homes in the Maldives islands.

THE wisdom of Ramaswamy Sudarshan is little-known outside the cerebral circles of the policy divisions of the United Nations Development Programme.

European Commissioner Chris Patten today urged EU governments to make a long-term political and economic commitment to Iraq, because “you cannot build a modern, democratic, open society on the cheap”.

United Nations staff in Baghdad were told to stay at home today after a massive truck bomb levelled their headquarters and killed at least 20 people, including the top UN envoy in Iraq.

THE Government is to tap private industry in an effort to build trade links and swap skills with the world’s poorest countries.

IRELAND is regarded as one of the least corrupt countries in the world, according to a major international report published yesterday.