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With the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reporting persistent banditry and deadly attacks on civilians throughout war-torn Darfur, the African-led force working to maintain peace in the vast region has begun investigating a spate of weekend violence, including armed clashes between government and rebel forces.

With 2 million children killed and 6 million injured in wars over the past decade, the United Nations Security Council, in a landmark resolution, today unanimously condemned the continued recruitment of child soldiers and approved setting up a mechanism for monitoring, reporting on and punishing those responsible.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today welcomed a 1.5 billion yen ($13.6 million) aid package from the Japanese Government and said this latest contribution reflected Japan's growing role in efforts to assist the millions of people affected by conflict and natural disasters in some of the priority areas in Africa.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), addressing the demolition of housing in Zimbabwe that has left hundreds of thousands homeless, today expressed horror that displaced children there are dying of treatable respiratory infections and evicted women have no alternative to giving birth in the open.

Mediterranean countries could save lives and billions of euros every year if they better trained and mobilized communities in preventing and controlling forest fires, which destroy up to 700,000 hectares annually in the region, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

The joint United Nations-Afghan body handling elections in Afghanistan condemned today in the strongest terms violence against people seeking to stabilize the war-torn country following last week’s murder of one election worker and the kidnapping of two more.

Acknowledging that recent challenges have eroded confidence in the ability of multilateral institutions to respond, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said “moments of crisis carry seeds of opportunity,” offering the UN and regional organizations the chance to work together more closely on peacebuilding and peacekeeping.

With the security situation in parts of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, remaining very tense, the United Nations peacekeeping mission has taken a robust posture to disrupt the activities of armed gangs and bring them to justice, while taking all possible measures to reduce the risk of civilian casualties.

Aiming to outline a new strategy for United Nations-backed development projects in Bangladesh, more than one hundred national experts and representatives of UN agencies wrapped up a series of roundtables and workshops today in Dhaka the capital, focused on helping the rural population to fight poverty.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today he hoped that Britain, in the face of the current wave of terrorist bombings, would be able to continue its past policy of avoiding racial profiling.