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The United Nations and its partners have launched a new project to facilitate the integration of displaced persons and refugees into host communities in the Russian Federation's North Caucasus republics by strengthening local economic development in a region where ethnic fighting has seen massacres and other attacks.

Stressing the vital role of independent media, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has welcomed the release of two French reporters taken hostage in Iraq four months ago, but at the same time has had to deplore the murder of yet another journalist - in this instance in Gambia.

As his top envoy continued meetings with Iraqi officials in Baghdad ahead of elections scheduled for 30 January, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today that the Iraqi people "have a chance for the first time in a long, long time to take their destiny in hand, to determine their own future."

The United Nations today outlined a further transfer of economic power to local officials in Kosovo, as it speeds up preparations for final status talks on the ethnically divided province that it has run since 1999, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) drove Yugoslav troops out amid Albanian-Serb fighting.

Joint United Nations and Côte d'Ivoire forces today started patrolling the West African country's major city, Abidjan, to provide security of person and property, the UN mission said today.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called on the United Nations and the Security Council to make an immediate and "real re-assessment" of their approach to resolving the humanitarian crisis engulfing Sudan's Darfur region because the current course is clearly not working.

Hailing his "unflinching dedication to the ideals and principles" of the United Nations during a career spanning almost three decades, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today announced the retirement of Iqbal Riza, his Chef de Cabinet, effective next month.

The United Nations Security Council today extended the mandate of the five-year-old UN Peacebuilding Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS) for another year and expanded its work, citing the Transitional Government's need for help in structuring mechanisms for national reconciliation and reform.

The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has documented illegal fishing and the dumping of bilge and other waste in the country's international waters, the senior UN envoy to the country said today, recommending expanded powers of intervention to deal with the problem.

The United Nations General Assembly, acting on recommendations from its Economic and Financial Committee, today called for the exploration of new mechanisms to reduce the debt load of the poorest countries and for greater transparency in the multilateral trading system.