GENEVA (Reuters) – The number of Syrians needing humanitarian aid has soared 50 percent since March to 1.5 million as escalating violence drives more people from their homes, the United Nations said on Friday.

The fighting between President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and rebels is making it difficult to reach vulnerable civilians, the the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

GENEVA, June 22 (Reuters) – The number of Syrians needing
humanitarian aid has soared 50 percent since March to 1.5
million as escalating violence drives more people from their
homes, the United Nations said on Friday.

The fighting between President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and
rebels is making it difficult to reach vulnerable civilians, the
the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) said.

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Aid teams stood ready on Wednesday to enter the contested Syrian city of Homs to evacuate people trapped and wounded by 10 days of fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Both sides had agreed to a temporary truce, the International Committee of the Red Cross said from Geneva.

GENEVA (Reuters) – A U.N. investigator has called on the Obama administration to justify its policy of assassinating rather than capturing al Qaeda or Taliban suspects, increasingly with the use of unmanned drone aircraft that also take civilian lives.

Christof Heyns, U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, urged Washington to clarify the basis under international law of the policy, in a report issued overnight to the United Nations Human Rights Council. The 47-member Geneva forum is to hold a debate later on Tuesday.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Myanmar’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday urged foreign governments not to allow their companies to form joint ventures with the state-owned oil and gas company until it improved its business practices.

Responsible investment was the key to helping her resource-rich country along the path to democracy after nearly 50 years of military rule, she said.

GENEVA, June 14 (Reuters) – Myanmar’s Nobel Peace Prize
winner Aung San Suu Kyi urged foreign governments not to allow
their companies to form joint ventures with the state-owned oil
and gas company until it improved its business practices.

Suu Kyi, speaking to the International Labour Organization
(ILO) in Geneva on Thursday, said: “The Myanma Oil and Gas
Enterprise (MOGE)… with which all foreign participation in the
energy sector takes place through joint venture arrangements,
lacks both transparency and accountability at present.”

GENEVA (Reuters) – Major powers are working towards holding a crisis meeting on Syria in Geneva on June 30 to try to get a tattered peace plan back on track, diplomats said on Thursday.

Kofi Annan, the United Nations-Arab League mediator, has called for convening the Contact Group as soon as possible but there has been U.S. opposition to Iran’s involvement.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Myanmar prisoner-turned-parliamentarian Aung San Suu Kyi began a tour of Europe almost certain to attract the kind of fanfare that will test the patience of the reformist generals now in power after decades of army rule.

The popular Nobel Peace laureate landed at Geneva’s Cointrin airport on Wednesday night, wearing three white roses in her hair and smiling and waving to the crowd.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Labour Organization (ILO) on Wednesday lifted more than a decade-old punitive restrictions on Myanmar in recognition of progress including a new law on trade unions and pledge to end forced labour by 2015.

The announcement by the United Nations agency came hours before opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was due to arrive in Geneva on her first European trip in a quarter of a century.

GENEVA, June 8 (Reuters) – More and more Syrian civilians
are being forced to flee their homes to escape fighting between
government troops and rebels, the International Committee of the
Red Cross said on Friday.

Sick or wounded people are also finding it difficult to
reach medical services while food, especially bread, is becoming
more scarce, according to the humanitarian agency, the only
international organisation deploying aid workers in Syria.