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United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called on the European Union (EU) to go further in its efforts to assist developing countries, as he continued to praise its recent initiatives increasing official development assistance, improving quality of aid, boosting assistance to Africa and relieving debt.

Dispatched by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to evaluate the recent evictions of some 200,000 poor people from housing in Zimbabwe, the chief of United Nations agency for human settlements expects President Robert Mugabe to receive her within 24 hours, the UN spokesman said today.

United Nations Headquarters in New York celebrated the world organization's 60th birthday this month by offering nearly 9,000 free Sunday tours in an effort to further inform the public of its work in tackling global crises.

The annual meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) opens tomorrow as government leaders and agency chiefs address the raft of issues on the UN's development agenda, from poverty and human rights to issues in trade, markets, telecommunications and infrastructure.

United Nations peacekeeping troops undertook a successful cordon-and-search operation in the Ituri district of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) yesterday, two days after the transit sites for ex-combatants were closed down, and cleared the designated area of militia members, the UN mission said today.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met at UN Headquarters in New York today to discuss a broad range of international issues, including UN reform, the need for closer US-UN consultation on Iraq and support for the African Union's mission in Sudan's western Darfur region.

With the environment of the Amazon Basin increasingly under siege from deforestation, mining, urbanization and other land use changes, the United Nations is co-sponsoring a new project to conserve and better manage the eight-nation region’s economically important waters, forests and wildlife.

The prohibition of torture is non-negotiable, and that includes an absolute ban on transferring anybody to another jurisdiction where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person is at risk of torture, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message on the International Day in Support for Victims of Torture.

Food distribution in natural or man-made emergencies should be combined with actions to improve self-reliance in food production, according to a new United Nations publication released today aimed at drawing up a long-term perspective to food insecurity and malnutrition during periods of crisis and recovery.

With solemn music and pleas for urgent reform, with expressions of pride in the past and hope for the future, the United Nations today held a special commemorative session in the General Assembly Hall at its Headquarters in New York to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of its Charter.