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The United Nations Security Council today extended the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) until 31 July to allow time to examine proposals by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on breaking the current impasse over the territory.

In another key move before independence next month, East Timor's leaders today selected eight international treaties - including the United Nations Charter - for signature immediately upon nationhood.

Amid press reports that Israel would reject a United Nations fact-finding team to the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was awaiting formal notification of Israel’s decision and stressed that the UN had done everything to meet the country’s concerns.

Two months after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) launched an assistance programme for returning Afghans, more than 400,000 people have travelled home to Afghanistan, the agency reported today.

With recent decisions by Israel signalling that the United Nations will not be able to deploy a fact-finding mission to Jenin with the country's cooperation, Secretary-General Kofi Annan is "minded to disband" the team, which has been working in Geneva while awaiting the green light to travel to the Middle East, a senior UN official told the Security Council today.

Israeli checkpoints and other blockages are hampering the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the occupied Palestinian territories, representatives of key United Nations aid agencies working in the Middle East said today.

The United Nations mission in Kosovo today said it was investigating possible fraud by the province's energy company, involving €4.5 million (euros) of international aid money used to import electricity.

The already severe humanitarian crisis in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will worsen dramatically within weeks unless the international community pledges more aid immediately, the United Nations warned today.

The United Nations refugee agency today urged European countries to sort out the case of a pair of stowaways who, in an apparent attempt to seek asylum, have been travelling from port to port aboard a cargo ship for more than two weeks.

The United Nations has honoured the nationals of 37 countries who had lost their lives while serving with UN peacekeeping missions.