United Nations

Tthe World Bank started a new partnership program with the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in order to support developing countries recovering assets stolen by corrupt leaders.

Developing countries often encounter severe problems due to misgovernment and corruption. The new co-operation will provide assistance and institutional help in order to recover stolen money and bring it back in developing countries and their rattled economies.

To improve and facilitate those efforts Switzerland joined the initiative and will support this accomplishment among others with new laws, to make illegal financial deposits impossible.

Read more about this important new program on BBC News online and on NewsFeedResearcher.com. 

Emissaries from the EU, the USA, and Russia met with politicians from Serbia today to discuss the status of Kosovo.

While Kosovo's Albanian Prime Minister works towards the independence of Kosovo, Serbia does not want to lose the province. Since 1999 the region is under a transitional interim UN administration.

Read more about the background and the discussions on Al Jazeera online, in the International Herald Tribune and in the Southeast European Times. Find related articles in our news or on our del.icio.us-archive.

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Less than one year before the Olympic Games are held in China, the ruling Communist Party faces a growing movement for political change. Taiwan has applied for a seat in the UN. However, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced it is impossible to accept a membership application from Taipei.

Since 1971 the Republic of China is recognized as the only legitimate representative for Chinese territory by the UN’s General Assembly. After losing the Chinese Civil War to the Communist Party of China in 1949, Beijing claims Taiwan as a province of China.

Two years after former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan implemented a new whistleblower protection concept within the Ethics Office of the United Nations, whistleblowers who claim to be fired over filing in complaints about incorrect internal UN procedures, request protection services from the Ethics Agency.

Read more about the cases and their background in International Herald Tribune. Join the debate in our forums: What is wrong with democracy?