News (Consolidated) - UNSOM

18 April 2011 – Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is expected to decline slightly this year despite the prevailing high prices of opium, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported today, saying that Government effort to discourage production could yield further reduction. UN News…

20 April 2011 - Journalists can make the government in Afghanistan better, according to the theme of a two-day regional conference in Kunduz which kicked off today with more than 140 representatives of government and media. “The role of media is significant and vital in establishing a democratic…

24 April 2011 - In the two months since the resumption of the United Nations voluntary repatriation programme more than 5,500 Afghan refugees have been able to return home. Meeting the immediate needs of the returnees is the result of enhanced cooperation between the UN programmes and agencies based…

24 April 2011 – The Eastern Regional Office of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) today donated electronic equipment and furniture to a newly established public information centre at the Nangarhar Provincial Council. Council Chair Haji Jamal Qadeer and UNAMA Head of the…

KABUL - An ambitious effort to plant one million trees is underway in Afghanistan which for the first year is counting its trees as part of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Billion Tree Campaign. The Billion Tree Campaign – which since 2007 planted more than two billion trees in 170…

25 April 2011 - Children at Bamyan Orphanage in the Central Highlands Region expressed their hopes for peace during a recent meeting with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). The children presented poems and songs about their losses in the conflict. They also sent wishes that…

26 April 2011- The penalties that Afghan women suffer whenever allegations of pre-marital sex and loss of virginity emerge, including death, are extreme, discriminatory and not in the penal code, activists said. IRIN story “I saw a woman who was publically humiliated and tortured because she had…

27 April 2011 – Metal signs with legal and religious quotes in support of women’s rights are being placed around the northern province of Kunduz to raise public awareness about women’s issues. The first two of six signs were inaugurated on Tuesday in a park in Kunduz city. The sign boards will be…

27 April 2011 – Dozens of religious scholars or “Ulemas” in eastern Afghanistan today vowed to help work towards peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan. Speaking at a meeting called by the Eastern Regional Office of United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA/ER) in Jalalabad, 25…

30 April 2011 – With announcements of a planned increase in fighting and hostilities in Afghanistan in the coming months, we call, as the United Nations and on behalf of all Afghans, on all parties to take all necessary measures to protect civilians. Print English - Dari - Pashto “Parties to the…

3 May 2011 - World Press Freedom Day was born twenty years ago in the vision of a group of journalists gathered in Windhoek, Namibia. The Windhoek Declaration was a call to arms to protect the fundamental principles of the freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration…