Tuesday, 16 May 2006, 6:08 pm Press Release: United Nations
New List Of ‘10 Stories The World Should Hear More About’
Released At UN
New York, May 15 2006 7:00PM
Aiming to
spotlight international issues that deserve greater media
attention, the United Nations Department of Public
Information (DPI) today unveiled its annual list of “Ten
Stories the World Should Hear More About,” which this year
ranges from development challenges facing Liberia as it
emerges from conflict to the plight of refugees caught in
limbo to the peace-building potential of water as a shared
resource.
“In today’s round-the-clock media world,
reporters often find themselves flooded with news, and
sometimes urgent and important stories are simply
overlooked,” Under-Secretary-General for Communications and
Public Information Shashi Tharoor told the UN News
Service.
“Our goal is to draw attention to those stories
that must be told,” he stressed.
The annual list draws on
extensive consultation with UN departments, field offices
and programmes. The order does not reflect any ranking. The
2006 stories are:
Development challenges top the
agenda in Liberia as it recovers from years of civil strife;
Asylum seekers face challenges amid efforts to stem
flows of illegal migrants;
As the Democratic Republic
of the Congo (DRC) moves boldly towards an historic
election, humanitarian concerns continue to demand
attention;
Nepal's children have become the
often-overlooked victims of ongoing strife in their country,
their plight exacerbated by poverty and abuse;
In
Somalia, the security vacuum is compounding effects of
drought;
The plight of millions of people who have
languished in protracted refugee situations for years – and
sometimes decades – has serious humanitarian and security
implications;
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Efforts to aid victims of the South
Asian earthquake have achieved success, but reconstruction
tasks remain enormous;
In many parts of the world, an
alarming number of children are held in detention without
sufficient cause;
Despite widespread perceptions that
water basins shared by countries tend to engender hostility
rather than collaborative solutions, water is an often
untapped resource of fruitful cooperation;
Gearing up
for October elections, Côte d'Ivoire faces fear that a
renewed eruption of violence will destroy any progress
towards political reconciliation.
The initiative,
first launched in 2004, is not meant to be representative of
the Organization's agenda. Additional information about the
stories is featured on a special Ten Stories web page,
<"http://www.un.org/events/tenstories/">www.un.org/events/tenstories.
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