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Although Guatemala has launched important initiatives and made undeniable progress since a peace agreement almost 10 years ago ended decades of civil war, reforms are moving too slowly and there has been no significant advance in combating impunity or eliminating clandestine groups, according to the top United Nations human rights official.

In the most comprehensive report so far on the world’s progress in combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the main United Nations agency combating the disease says most countries have built a strong foundation on which to mount an effective response but new infections are continuing to increase in certain areas.

With a senior United Nations official on the ground in Timor-Leste today seeking to defuse the violence that has torn through the small country in recent weeks, UN agencies have resumed food distributions to camps holding 100,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) but conditions in them are worsening due to overcrowding and rain.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today vowed to continue working for the release of Myanmar democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest the authorities have extended.

Reacting to the recent deadly riots in Afghanistan reportedly sparked by a road accident involving a United States convoy, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today stressed that the United Nations would continue its assistance for stability in the war-wracked country.

The United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) is searching for seven of their colleagues who disappeared during a confrontation between armed militias and UN-backed soldiers from the national army, which also left one UN peacekeeper dead and brought the six-year peacekeeping death toll to 74.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and a prominent Norwegian humanitarian group will make joint efforts to protect displaced people worldwide, according to an agreement signed between the two organizations working for the protection of refugees.

A meeting of experts on the Alliance of Civilizations – an initiative aimed at bridging the gap between Islam and the West – concluded today in Dakar, Senegal, having advanced preparations for a report on actions to tackle the problem that will be presented to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan later this year.

The world’s rural women can play a crucial role in efforts to restore drylands, according to a new study released by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) at a major UN conference on women and desertification being held in Beijing this week.

Chairpersons of three major United Nations Security Council anti-terrorism committees today updated the 15-member body on their efforts to improve their operations in the fight against the scourge, including through increased cooperation on a variety of fronts.