Geneva - More than 20,000 Georgian residents displaced by their country's war with Russia in August have returned home, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday.

Geneva - Iraqis remain the largest group of people seeking asylum in the world's industrialized nations in the first half of 2008, though the overall number is dropping as the situation in Iraq stabilizes, reported the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Overall, the first six months of 2008 registered 165,100 requests for asylum, a 3 per cent increase versus the same time period for 2007, reported the agency in a report released Friday. Figures also showed a 9 per cent increase for 2007 over 2006.

Kathmandu, Oct 17 : United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) Chief, Ian Martin has said that the UN body is not inclined towards any party while the peace process is underway.

His remakes came at a time when Nepali Congress president Girija Prasad Korala had commented that the People Liberation Army (PLA) could not be integrated with the Nepal Army (NA) as Martin rejected the idea of sending the PLA in UN''s peace keeping operations.

Speaking at a press meet here on Thursday, Martin said the UN mission always sought to play an impartial role and was committed to work fairly in the peace process.

United Nations, Oct 17 : Pakistan has reportedly called for the development of international non-discriminatory criterias regarding co-operation over the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

The country’s Ambassador to the UN Zamir Akram said that a few unfair restrictions on the development of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes were resulting in “double standards”.

“Unfair restrictions on the development of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes only serve to strengthen the monopoly of few over nuclear technology and thus aggravate the sense of discrimination and existence of double standards,” the Daily Times quoted Akram as saying while speaking in a debate on nuclear weapons at the General Assembly’s First Committee.

New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to attend an international conference on migration and development in late October in the Philippines, the first of four Asian countries he plans to visit, the UN said Thursday.

The Second Global Forum on Migration and Development will take place in Manila on October 29. Ban will meet with President Gloria Arroyo and receive the nation's Order of Sikatuna in recognition of his diplomatic efforts.

New York - Austria, Iceland, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Turkey, and Uganda are competing for five seats on the UN Security Council in an election on Friday in the UN General Assembly.

The five council seats that will be vacated on December 31 are now occupied by Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, Panama and South Africa. Those countries are ending their two-year terms in the body that has authority on issues of peace and security around the world.