U.N.'s Ban to urge giving to Pakistan flood appeal

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will push the world's nations on Thursday to contribute to a U.N. appeal for flood-stricken Pakistan, with high-level U.S. and Pakistani backing expected, U.N. officials said.

The officials said they hoped U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi would attend when Ban reports to the 192-nation U.N. General Assembly on a weekend trip he made to Pakistan.

No formal confirmation had so far been received, they said, but in Washington, a U.S. official said it was likely Clinton would attend, as well as her special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, and USAID chief Rajiv Shah.

The United States is expected to announce a further $100 million for flood relief for Pakistan at the U.N. meeting, the official said. So far, Washington has given about $76 million in assistance and sent helicopters to help with relief work.

The United Nations launched an appeal last week for almost $460 million for Pakistan, which has suffered two weeks of catastrophic flooding that has disrupted the lives of one tenth of its 170 million people.

Ban would press on Thursday for contributions to that appeal, but no new appeal would be made, officials said.

Up to 1,600 people have been killed and two million made homeless in Pakistan's worst floods in decades.

Only a quarter of the sum requested by the United Nations for initial relief has so far arrived, according to U.N. officials. Last year the United States gave at least $1 billion in military aid to its regional ally to battle militants.

(Reporting by Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations and Sue Pleming in Washington; editing by Anthony Boadle)