40 PKK militants killed in Cizre during eight-day curfew

Around 40 outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants were killed during the eight-day curfew in the Cizre district of the southeastern province of Şırnak, Şırnak Governor Ali İhsan Su has said.

World Humanitarian Day/UN: More than three million Malians suffer from hunger

More than three million Malians suffer from food insecurity as a result of the political and security crisis in the northern part of the country, the UN said Wednesday on the occasion of World Humanitarian Day.

Sustainable food systems vital to end hunger, malnutrition, UN says on World Food Day.

UN, 16 October 2013 – Efficient, well-managed and sustainable food systems are essential to end hunger and malnutrition as well as protect the environment, United Nations officials stressed today, marking World Food Day.
“The key to better nutrition, and ultimately to ensuring each person’s right to food, lies in better food systems – smarter approaches, policies and investments encompassing the environment, people, institutions and processes by which agricultural products are produced, processed and brought to consumers in a sustainable manner,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the Day.

“Every day, more than 840 million people go hungry in a world of plenty. This fact alone should be cause for moral outrage and concerted action.”
The theme of this year’s Day, which is celebrated on 16 October in honour of the date of the founding of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1945, is “Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition.”

Syria: UN humanitarian chief urges pause in fighting to allow access to trapped civilians.

13 September 2013 – As fighting between Syrian Government and opposition forces continue to intensify, the United Nations humanitarian chief today called on all sides to agree to a pause in the hostilities so that relief agencies could gain “immediate and unhindered access” to evacuate desperate civilians trapped in towns and cities increasingly under siege.
“I am extremely worried by reports that more than half a million people remain trapped in Rural Damascus,” Valerie Amos said in a statement, noting, for example that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is receiving “very disturbing reports” from the town of Moadamyieh, which is just a few kilometres from the capital