Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, asked the leader of Burmese junta to release the detained democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, today but was refused the chance to meet her in an unpromising start to an important two-day visit.

Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices.

In his Inaugural Address, President Obama said, "let clean waters flow." With those words, he brought recognition to the suffering of 884 million people who do not have access to clean water and 2.5 billion without adequate sanitation.

UN peacekeepers are risking their lives in the name of peace. These men and women in blue helmets, more than 100,000 in total - the second largest deployed military in the world - can be found in 16 of the world's most dangerous conflict areas.

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Aung San Suu Kyi suffers from dehydration, low blood pressure and weight loss. Her medical condition makes her transfer to Insein Prison at this time dangerous. Please ask Myanmar's leaders to free Aung San Suu Kyi and all other prisoners of conscience.

Burma's brave democracy activists are calling on UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to secure all 2,100 political prisoners release. He can make this a condition of any renewed international engagement. We have just six days to get Ban Ki Moon's attention.

Israeli Health Minister Yakov Litzman has been updating a nervous public on the swine flu epidemic - and he started by renaming it for religious reasons. "We will call it Mexican flu. We won't call it swine flu," said Mr Litzman

Since 1998, an estimated 5.4 million people have died due to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while countless others fled to neighboring countries for safety or remain in camps far from their homes.

An Islamic-dominated United Nations forum on Thursday passed a resolution condemning "defamation of religion" as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech in Muslim countries.