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Repeating his earlier calls for an end to the fighting that erupted in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after Sunday’s provisional election results, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also called for all opposing forces to withdraw from the streets of Kinshasa.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has expressed deep concern about reports of a possible coup attempt in Burundi and the subsequent arrests of several prominent politicians.

The United Nations refugee agency will dispatch another team to southern Gambia this week as thousands of Senegalese refugees sweep across the border to escape rising tensions in their country’s volatile Casamance region.

Lebanese army units have taken over more positions left by withdrawing Israeli troops and are now deployed in more than 50 per cent of the territory south of the Litani River, the United Nations says, adding that its interim force continues to work closely with both sides and is also stepping up its humanitarian work

Several United Nations agencies are stepping in to provide relief assistance to Ecuador after last week’s deadly volcanic eruption in the central part of the Andean country.

Two days before the mandate of the United Nations Office in Timor-Leste (UNOTIL) comes to an end, the Secretary General’s Special Representative to the Southeast Asian nation called for renewed commitment to the integrity of the country’s judicial system.

Five more United Nations aid convoys carrying essential supplies left Beirut for southern Lebanon today, as UN agencies said the full extent of the destruction in the south was becoming clear and warned of growing public health dangers faced by survivors of the month-long conflict.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour today expressed support for an international convention to protect the rights of persons with disabilities, adding that its adoption – the latest round of negotiations on an agreed text conclude this week – would offer such persons the genuine protection that they have lacked until now.

Australia is experiencing a serious and hidden national housing crisis, according to a United Nations human rights expert, who has called on the country’s Government to adopt a national housing policy based on human rights and urgently address the “humanitarian tragedy” of the lack of housing and services for indigenous peoples.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan will head to the Middle East and Europe later this week in a trip designed to strengthen the situation in Lebanon and Israel following the formal cessation of hostilities there in the wake of the recent Security Council resolution.