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Just back from a visit to Darfur, Sudan, Angelina Jolie, a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency, yesterday said she found conditions too dangerous for the region's vast population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to return to their home villages.

After the 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone, the government should pay reparations to amputees and other wounded victims, those who were sexually violated, and the widows and children who suffered deprivation, displacement, or worse between 1991 and 2002, a United Nations-endorsed report on the war says.

The lawyers appointed by a United Nations war crimes tribunal to represent former Yugoslav President Slobodan Miloševic against genocide charges have asked to withdraw from the case because the defendant is uncooperative.

Just ahead of a visit to New York to report to the Security Council on the Darfur conflict in Sudan, the senior United Nations envoy to the country today warned that the situation in the strife-torn region has not improved much during the past month.

Tarps and other supplies are being distributed today at a camp for war-displaced people in northern Uganda where last weekend a powerful storm ripped roofs off shelters and washed away food rations, according to the United Nations relief coordination office.

The United Nations is closely following the situation in Ramallah, where Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is reportedly ill, a UN spokesman said today.

The Security Council today unanimously adopted a resolution extending the mandate of the United Nations mission in Western Sahara through 30 April 2005, and asking Secretary-General Kofi Annan to report further on the possibility of reducing the size of the operation.

Women remain overwhelmingly excluded from participating in peace talks and post-conflict reconstruction, and continue to suffer physical and sexual violence during war, Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a report on women, peace and security.

For the 13th year in a row, the United Nations General Assembly today overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for an end to the 40-year-old commercial, economic and financial embargo by the United States against Cuba and objecting to laws and regulations compelling third countries to adhere to it.

The Security Council today called on the international community to help Central African Republic (CAR) prepare for its November constitutional referendum and January elections, and it welcomed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's intention to renew the mandate of the United Nations peace-building office there.