UN

World Tuna Day is an initiative of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), which has celebrated the day in the PNA region since 2012 following PNA government fisheries ministers endorsing the annual event.

RNZ reports the PNA said World Tuna Day is a reminder of people's role as custodians of the rich natural resource that is food for tens of millions of people around the world.

PNA Chair Sonia Schutz said the Parties to the Nauru Agreement are managing the world's largest sustainable tuna fishery, so it is gratifying to see the outpouring of support for the resolution.

Now, the agency is working with Australia in what both sides call an unusual, not-to-be-replicated agreement to send some of those refugees across the world, to be resettled in the United States.

The deal, announced by Australia last week, is aimed at shutting down two offshore detention facilities — one on the island nation of Nauru and the other on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea — where hundreds of people are housed in what rights groups describe as deplorable conditions.

The United States has agreed to take some of them; how many, and how quickly, remains unclear.

Holiday shopping, the city's marathon, and the US voting against the rest of the world at the UN over Washington's Cuba embargo.

On Wednesday, however, the US took the small but significant step of changing its vote to an abstention on the annual UN General Assembly resolution calling for an end to the US economic embargo of the island nation.

RNZ reports speaking at a refugee and migrant summit in New York before the 71st General Assembly, Mr Adeang described Nauru's offshore regional processing system with Australia as an innovative model, which had avoided thousands of deaths at sea.

He said Nauru was proud of the system, which had been effective - apart from a crucial missing element.

"Nauru invites other countries to assist in finding durable resettlement solutions for our refugees. This is the critical missing component.

The United Nations says an immediate pause in fighting is needed to allow the water and electricity networks to be fixed.

Some two million people are without vital supplies, the UN says.

Fighting between government forces and rebels has intensified in recent weeks.

At least 250,000 people are believed to have been trapped in rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo since a key route into the area was closed by government forces in early July.

On Sunday, rebels cut off the government's key access route into western Aleppo.

In a Cabinet meeting that went well over time on Thursday, Mr Rudd's case was pushed by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and supported by Attorney-General George Brandis.

The backing of some other ministers who spoke in favour has been described as lukewarm.

But many spoke against nominating Mr Rudd, including Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, Treasurer Scott Morrison and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, who argued he was unfit for the role.

In the end it was left to the Prime Minister to make the call with the undertaking the leadership will support his decision.

The report's authors said the toll was "alarming and shameful", and that history would judge leaders on all sides on their response.

A total of 1,601 civilians deaths were recorded among all ages between January and June, of which 388 were children.

In the latest attack, 80 people died in a huge bomb blast in Kabul on Saturday.

It estimates that 65.3m people were either refugees, asylum seekers or internally displaced at the end of 2015, an increase of 5m in a year.

This represents one in every 113 people on the planet, it adds.

Meanwhile, the UN refugee chief says a worrying "climate of xenophobia" has taken hold in Europe as it struggles to cope with the migrant crisis.

The influx of people, the biggest since World War Two, has led to greater support to far-right groups and controversial anti-immigration policies.

The Charter was signed in Suva on 04 September 2015 at the conclusion of the historical Third PIDF Leaders Summit.

There are currently ten signatories of the PIDF Charter. They are Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu, Pacific Island Association and Non-Governmental Organisation (PIANGO), Pacific Islands Private Sector Organisation (PIPSO).

The secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, met Malcolm Turnbull on the sidelines of the Asean summit in Malaysia on Sunday.

Ban also raised concerns about conditions in Australia's detention centres in Nauru and on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.