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The United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo today teamed with the world body’s cultural heritage agency and leading development experts to kick off an international conference to explore ways to make globalization work for the benefit of all humankind.

With United Nations humanitarian officials calling the situation in war-torn Liberia critical, Secretary-General Kofi Annan renewed his appeal today for urgent action to deploy peacekeeping forces in the West African country, where tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting and food stocks are dwindling.

Many countries feel the internationalization of overall operations in Iraq under a United Nations umbrella is important, but a new Security Council resolution giving the world body a broader mandate is not imminent, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.

The battle against the Al-Qaida terrorist organization leaves no room for complacency and countries must seek out operatives trained in making crude forms of weapons of mass destruction as well as vet charitable foundations used as conduits for money, the United Nations Security Council was told today.

Thousands more Liberians have been displaced after the rebel capture of Buchanan, the West African country’s second-largest city, and the United Nations has received reports that over 50,000 people, including some who fled recent fighting in Monrovia, the capital, are moving towards an area near the international airport.

The United Nations refugee agency has helped more than 300,000 Afghans return home from Pakistan and Iran so far this year, but the rate is far below last year’s unprecedented flow, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today.

Surrounded by aspiring young soccer stars, players from football powerhouse Manchester United led a clinic today at United Nations Headquarters in New York to celebrate its partnership with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to end child exploitation.

The first convoy of refugees returning to Iraq since the fall of the previous government left Saudi Arabia's Rafha camp today with more than 240 people in five buses, ending more than 12 years in exile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported.

Media leaders and policy makers from around the globe will convene in a landmark meeting to be broadcast worldwide from Geneva this December to discuss the role of the media in the information society as well as in issues ranging from violence to development.

The new head of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today announced plans to rapidly step up the global fight to eradicate polio and named a senior agency expert in SARS as his representative to spearhead the effort.