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Kicking off a new phase in its Angola return operation, the United Nations refugee agency today began repatriating Angolans who have been living outside camps and settlements in the western Congolese region of Kasangulu.

The United Nations would work closely with the Government of Sierra Leone on consolidating peace after the West African country's long civil conflict by addressing such underlying causes as deficits in governance, human rights observance and the rule of law, according to proposals from Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Calling him a true friend of the United Nations since its inception, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today paid tribute to Saudi Arabian King Fahd’s enduring contributions in the field of international and regional diplomacy where he worked tirelessly to achieve peaceful solutions based on justice.

With parliamentary elections in Afghanistan only seven week’s away, the United Nations mission warned today that a $31 million funding shortfall could hamper essential preparatory work and lead to a postponement, although it stressed that it expected the poll to go ahead as scheduled.

A senior United Nations human rights official has called for rapid action by the world body in conjunction with the Government of the southern African country to end the “ongoing violations of human rights on the massive scale” entailed by the eviction of more than a half a million people.

As a gift to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, schoolchildren from a small Swedish village have raised money to purchase multi-variety apple trees that can be seen to represent harmony among the diverse global community.

United Nations agencies are providing help to states in western India where unprecedented heavy rains and flooding have killed some 1,000 people, destroyed 10,000 houses, damaged hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops lands and drowned 15,000 sheep and goats.

The United Nations-sponsored Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission will establish a working group to draft a new programme for Nigeria’s withdrawal from the Bakassi Peninsula, which the World Court awarded to Cameroon in October 2002, and submit the plan to the heads of the two countries and the UN Secretary-General.

As part of continuing efforts to help coastal communities recover from the devastating effects of last year's Indian Ocean tsunami, United Nations agencies today announced the distribution of fishing equipment in Sri Lanka and strategies for the reconstruction of ports in Indonesia.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has appointed a seasoned veteran in the fight against racism and the promotion of women's rights, Gay McDougall of the United States, as the world body's first independent expert on minority issues.