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Rising oil prices and trade imbalances are combining with natural disasters and geopolitical instability to slow the global economy, a senior United Nations official has told a General Assembly committee.

The Security Council today strongly condemned the deadly weekend bombing in Bali, Indonesia, regretting that the island had "again fallen victim to a heinous act of terrorism."

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today received a report on Kosovo that could influence the timing of talks on the final status of the ethnically-divided province, which the United Nations has run since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) drove out Yugoslav troops amid grave human rights abuses in fighting between Albanians and Serbs in 1999.

Expressing its concern that foreign armed groups remain in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Security Council today deplored the failure of a Rwandan rebel group to disarm and repatriate, as it had pledged to do in March, and welcomed the DRC's plans to disarm an incoming Ugandan rebel group.

More than 500 million youths worldwide live on less than $2 a day, 113 million are not in school, 88 million are unemployed and 10 million have HIV/AIDS, all significant challenges for reaching the 2015 goals of reducing poverty by half, increasing literacy, and improving the health of people around the world, a United Nations report released today says.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will be travelling in Europe over the next 10 days, paying official visits to Switzerland and Portugal, attending UN meetings and addressing an Ibero-American Summit.

The Security Council's programme of work for October will range from a much-anticipated report on Kosovo as well as elections in Lebanon and Liberia to the problems of children caught up in armed conflict, the Permanent Representative of Romania, which holds the rotating presidency for the month, said today.

A new United Nations initiative in Latin America will calculate women's unpaid and volunteer work with a view to improving their chances for resource allocation, the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) said today.

The United Nations General Assembly’s Legal Committee must act to conclude a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs has said.

With more than 3 billion people – one third of humanity – facing the prospect of living in slums by 2050 if present trends continue, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today dismissed evictions and demolitions as the answer, calling instead for pro-poor urban development.