The United Nations peacekeeping chief today raised the prospect that Kosovo's progress towards reaching the standards of a normal society - necessary before its future status can be determined - could be reviewed by mid-2005.

“It’s time to score goals for development,” United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message to tonight’s Poverty Soccer Game, a special match being held in Basel, Switzerland, to raise money for anti-poverty projects in developing countries.

With South-Eastern Europe described by the United Nations anti-crime agency as a “high-transit” region for human trafficking, mostly in women and children for sexual exploitation, senior officials from 13 countries in the area will meet next week to launch a training scheme to help police and special investigators tackle the problem.

The universal values enshrined in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights more than half a century ago - such as peace, freedom, social progress, equal rights and human dignity - are more important now than ever as they come under attack in a backlash against globalization, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.