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With Afghanistan listed as a key producer of opium, the United Nations anti-narcotics agency has added a new agreement to its largely expanded portfolio of 20 projects, worth $38 million, in the fight against illicit drugs in the central Asian country.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today denounced the terrorist bomb attacks in Mumbai, India, which killed more than 40 peopled and injured many more.

Vowing not to let terrorists dictate United Nations policy, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today again reiterated that withdrawing the UN mission in Iraq following the massive truck-bomb attack that killed his top envoy and 22 other people in Baghdad last week is out of the question.

The United Nations is backing a peace commission in northern Afghanistan that is bringing together members of different factions in a bid to resolve conflicts without violence, a UN spokesman said today in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today paid tribute to his envoy for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in a massive terrorist bombing earlier this week, by vowing to honour his dying wish that the United Nations complete its mission in the war-ravaged nation.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan continued his push today for increased security for United Nations operations in Iraq after Tuesday’s deadly terrorist bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, meeting with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of the United Kingdom, main partner of the United States-led coalition running the occupied country.

A joint team of specialists from two United Nations agencies and the Chinese Government has recommended boosting regulations in the farming, trading and consumption of wildlife to shield against a possible animal reservoir of the virus that causes the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Sergio Vieira de Mello, veteran United Nations servant, defender of human rights and protector of refugees, began his final journey home today, his body borne aboard a Brazilian Presidential plane at Baghdad airport amid prayers, praise and pledges to continue his mission.

A United Nations official who was inside the world body's headquarters in Baghdad at the time of this week's terrorist bombing described today the first moments of the attack as an "extraordinary thud" followed quickly by the terrible smell of gunpowder and the screams and moans of people injured by showers of shattered glass.

Amid hopes that Liberia's nascent peace process heralds the end of a bitter 14-year war, the United Nations warned today that lawlessness is sweeping the overcrowded, disease-ridden capital Monrovia and that the true extent of the country's humanitarian crisis is only starting to emerge as aid agencies begin to travel outside the devastated city.