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The United Nations Security Council today urged the world's countries to do more to halt the flow of the illicit small arms and light weapons, warning that they could end up in the hands of terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida.

Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette today made a strong case for the ability of the United Nations to evolve, while stressing the need for a strengthened collective response to emerging security threats.

The Security Council heard a briefing today on the future role of the United Nations in Iraq from top Iraqi officials, who said a return of the UN to the country was key to the process of restoring sovereignty to the Iraqi people.

The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has opened its first medical camp to provide free health services to the local population.

A United Nations spokesman in Kabul today announced the world body's support for a new drive to prevent smugglers from taking Afghan children to other countries where they are used for cheap labour.

The United Nations refugee organization is set to launch on Monday the first phase of a repatriation programme for Rwandans from Uganda as part of a much wider effort in several African nations to help tens of thousands of remaining Rwandan refugees return to their homeland, torn by ethnic violence a decade ago.

The world’s leaders must re-focus their energies on such threats as extreme poverty, hunger, endemic diseases and environmental degradation after a year in which they were distracted by other threats, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.

The United Nations refugee agency is set to begin relocating tens of thousands of Sudanese who have fled the country's war-torn Darfur region and now live in makeshift camps scattered along the insecure border with Chad, where they have been victims of periodic incursions by Sudanese militia.

The Middle East peace process has been stalemated because the two sides, lacking "the will to take risks for peace," are making sequential moves instead of parallel ones, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today.

Seeking to draw up a global balance sheet of the United Nations battle against HIV/AIDS, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today held his first annual consultations with his special envoys dealing with the pandemic on a regional basis as well as with Peter Piot, Executive Director of the joint UN programme on the disease (UNAIDS).