A United Nations agency said Tuesday that conditions in the Gaza Strip are growing more desperate following its decision to suspend aid to repair homes damaged in last summer’s conflict between Israel and Hamas.

India has long seemed unable or unwilling to become a major player on the world stage. But the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is looking to change all that. In order to compensate for a small and weak foreign service, he is tapping into India’s considerable soft power: its emigrants, intellectuals, and yogis.

WHO welcomes the appointment of the new United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Tuberculosis (TB), Dr Eric P. Goosby, M.D. Dr Goosby’s extensive and high-level experience in global health and diplomacy give him the perfect background for this critical role. (...) WHO looks forward to working closely with Dr Goosby in our shared effort to raise the profile of the fight against TB and to attain the ambitious new targets agreed at last year’s World Health Assembly.

On International Migrants Day 2014 (December 18), Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) William Lacy Swing wrote in a New York Times op-ed that 2014 was “the deadliest year for migrants on record” characterized by “unprecedented anti-migrant sentiment worldwide.” 

Ireland’s foreign service is relatively small, with 80 representations, and comparatively thinly spread, with an average of one to two people in each post. But it is talented, flexible and normally led by generalists well able to represent the State in a great variety of international settings.

A Russian initiative to host peace talks this month between the Syrian government and its opponents appears to be unraveling as prominent Syrian opposition figures shun the prospective negotiations amid deep distrust of Moscow and concerns the talks hold no chance of success.

More than 100,000 people have been displaced by flooding in Malawi, and scores have died there and in neighboring Mozambique after weeks of rain, officials said Friday. The United Nations World Food Program said it plans to airlift more than 100 metric tons of food to the southern African country Malawi to feed at least 77,000.