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With the situation in Côte d’Ivoire continuing to pose a threat to international peace and security, the United Nations Security Council has extended the mandate of the three-person team monitoring the arms embargo against that country, which has been divided between government and rebel forces since fighting broke out in 2002.

United Nations humanitarian relief activities are being carried out in Iraq below the media radar for security reasons, but these quiet efforts to provide clean water, sanitation, health services and education are achieving great results, including the absence of cholera and polio, a senior UN official based in the region said today.

Five years after the adoption of a groundbreaking Security Council resolution on women in armed conflict, emissaries from some of the most war-ravaged parts of the world meeting at a United Nations-backed conference in Bucharest said more must be done to implement its provisions.

Governments around the world are increasingly working to prevent violence in the interests of public health and cost-effectiveness, according to the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO), which today opened a conference in San Francisco, California, aimed at seeking further advances on the issue.

The Security Council today discussed Eritrea’s ban on United Nations helicopter flights over its sector of the frontier with Ethiopia – a measure which has limited the ability of the UN peacekeeping mission there to conduct surveillance, emergency evacuations and de-mining.

With 10,000 children in remote earthquake-stricken parts of Pakistan facing possible death within the next few weeks unless helicopters and other vital needs are supplied immediately, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called for an "immediate and exceptional escalation" of the global relief effort.

Combating sexual exploitation and abuse by United Nations peacekeepers, currently some 80,000-strong around the world, will require a continuous effort, and more needs to be done, the head of the world body’s peacekeeping operations said today.

As Hurricane Wilma – now a highly dangerous category five storm – makes its way through the Caribbean, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is keeping close contact with its offices in Cuba and Honduras to monitor the storm’s progress.

Afghanistan has achieved notable progress in promoting democracy and securing the human rights of its citizens, but the Government and coalition forces there must take further measures to prevent abuses, a United Nations report published today says.

The head of the United Nations inquiry into the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri may present his report to the Security Council on Friday, a UN spokesman said today.