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Residents of the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea have been pleading for help from the international community since their homes began sinking into the ocean.

The Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has defended the placement of tens of thousands of classified US military files on his website.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Japan have partnered to conserve and manage the birthplace of Buddha in southern Nepal.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened to cut off oil supplies to the United States should his country be invaded by Colombia, a U.S. ally.

More than two million Guineans do not have enough to eat, basic health services are a shambles and the country is in a fragile transition from decades of military rule, yet most aid donors do not see Guinea as an "emergency".

Heavy rain in southern Sudan’s Jonglei state has caused floods that have killed two people and destroyed more than 130 homes during the past 10 days, a United Nations agency has reported, saying that those affected are in need of shelter material, food and drinking water.

The fight against malaria is integral to boosting women’s and children’s health and achieving the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told Africa leaders, urging them to build on the progress made so far to defeat the disease.

The peace process in Darfur has reached a critical point, with the security situation deteriorating just as prospects for a negotiated settlement have slightly improved, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council as he urged all parties to the conflict to step up their efforts to reach a deal.

BP said today that it's taking a charge of $32.2 billion to pay for the Gulf oil spill. And, the company suggested, it could ultimately wind up on the hook for more.

As the humanitarian “system” becomes more complex, with new actors and overlapping mandates, different definitions of humanitarian aid, and ever-more ambitious goals, humanitarian aid watchdog Development Initiatives outlines some of the needs, responses and funding trends over the past decade in its 2010 Global Humanitarian Assistance (GHA) report.