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Secretary-General Kofi Annan heads to Africa this weekend for a two-week official visit that will take him to South Africa, Madagascar, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the United Nations has deployed a multifaceted peacekeeping operation, a spokesman for the world body announced today.

From its towering Headquarters in New York to the seared fields of Nigeria, from Secretary-General Kofi Annan to case workers fighting rape in Nepal to special goodwill ambassador Nicole Kidman, the United Nations today marked International Women's Day with calls to boost the role of women in decision-making.

The United Nations is helping Namibia recover from flooding when the sluices of a dam fed by eight rivers had to be opened last month to alleviate rising waters, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.

The top United Nations envoy in Iraq today visited Amman, capital of neighbouring Jordan, where many of the world body’s operations have been based since the attack on the UN’s Baghdad headquarters in August 2003.

Five months after Pakistan was devastated by an earthquake which killed more than 73,000 people, injured nearly 70,000 and left millions homeless, the emergency aid phase is nearing its end and the United Nations is set to formally launch a year-long recovery and reconstruction stage, humanitarian officials said today.

Calling for strengthening impartial, democratic institutions in Azerbaijan, an independent United Nations human rights expert today said the national Government generally respects freedom of religion but in some regions administrative controls “result in real forms of repression.”

Citing outstanding questions surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme, the Director-General of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today is sending its report on the issue to the Security Council, marking a new phase in the diplomatic efforts to determine whether Tehran is trying to develop atomic weapons.

Calling the protracted stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea “increasing untenable” and dangerous for the region, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged both countries to cooperate during a proposed March convening of the commission that was created to settle their border dispute.

Troops from the army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), backed by hundreds of United Nations peacekeepers with armoured vehicle and helicopter support, have regained control of parts of the South Kivu region in the east of the strife-torn country that were occupied by rebels from neighbouring Rwanda.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has submitted a list of international judges and other legal experts to Cambodia’s Prime Minister to serve in the trial of former leaders of the Khmer Rouge accused of horrific crimes, including mass killings, during the 1970s, a spokesman for the world body announced today.