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Bringing together some 60 heads of State and government and close to 6,000 participants – including children – the United Nations General Assembly today opened a special session that for the first time in the history of the UN’s main legislative and deliberative body is formally devoted to the situation of young people under the age of 18.

More than 80 countries have so far accepted invitations from United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to be on hand for independence ceremonies later this month in East Timor as the territory prepares to become the first new nation of the new millennium.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today announced that it was feeding thousands of severely malnourished Angolans whose plight surfaced only after an accord between the Government and rebel group UNITA paved the way for humanitarian agencies to gain greater access to remote parts of the country.

While welcoming the return home of more than half a million Afghans over the past few weeks, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, warned today that more must be done inside the war- and drought-ravaged country to ensure the sustainability of the repatriation effort.

The United Nations Secretariat will work expeditiously to prepare a report on recent events in Jenin and other Palestinian cities, as requested by the General Assembly, a UN spokesman announced today.

Two senior United Nations officials today added their voices to Secretary-General Kofi Annan's "utter condemnation" of Tuesday's suicide bomb attack in Rishon Letzion which killed 15 Israelis and wounded many others.

A United Nations expert is visiting El Salvador and Panama for talks with authorities in both countries on efforts taken to combat mercenary activities.

The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has designated a new member of the monitoring group set up by the Security Council to ensure that UN sanctions against the Taliban are enforced, according to a document released today at UN Headquarters in New York.

A spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today that the Secretary-General regretted the United States decision not to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was officially communicated to the UN on Monday.

The work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is “indispensable” to achieving international goals aimed at realizing children’s rights, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.