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United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today warmly welcomed the appointment of outgoing World Bank President James Wolfensohn as the Middle East Quartet's Special Envoy to help oversee Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to aid in coordinating revitalization efforts once Palestinian authorities take over the area.

Representatives of the United Nations Security Council, on their first fact-finding visit to Haiti, today met Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue for talks before holding meetings with leaders of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Caribbean country to assess its needs.

Although globalized livestock markets can increase national income and improve nutrition, they also pose potential risks to livelihoods, human health and the environment ranging from the exclusion of small producers to the threat of a global closedown due to disease, according to a new United Nations report released today.

Deploring yet another attack on the freedom of the press, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today called on the Mexican authorities to do all in their power to find and prosecute the murderers of a journalist reportedly linked to frequent articles on drug trafficking and corruption.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has called on the international community to open a global dialogue to combat the defamation of religions, citing specifically the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities after the terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001.

The search for the remains of Kuwaiti prisoners of war and third-country nationals missing since Iraq’s occupation of its small neighbour 14 years ago has not progressed substantially in recent months because of the difficult security situation, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in his latest report on the issue.

To make vital progress towards implementing internationally agreed development goals, it will be crucial to harness the potential created by the past decade's info-tech explosion, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today in his message to a global forum on using new technologies to boost education.

The United Nations General Assembly today adopted by consensus an international treaty against nuclear terrorism which Secretary-General Kofi Annan hailed as "a vital step forward" in multilateral efforts to prevent terrorists from gaining access to "the most lethal weapons known to humanity."

Worldwide progress towards meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is still wanting, and rich and poor countries alike must take bold and urgent action to reach the set of recommendations and targets designed to reduce or eliminate numerous social ills by 2015, a new report by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) says.

Worried by growing tensions in Guinea-Bissau ahead of presidential elections in two months, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today directed his envoy, João Bernardo Honwana, to promote and facilitate dialogue between all political actors in the West African country to defuse pressures and build a more conducive atmosphere for a peaceful, credible ballot.