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Swaziland, with the highest prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS in the world, is undergoing socially wrenching changes, with some heads of families now as young as 8 and the number of orphans likely to rise to 10 or 15 per cent of the population by 2010, the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa said today.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) today ruled that the United States has breached its obligations under an international convention to 51 Mexicans on death row in US jails when it did not inform them of their right to contact their consular representatives "without delay" after their arrest.

International observers from more than a dozen governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) declared legislative elections held over the weekend in Guinea-Bissau to be "free, fair and transparent" and called on all political actors to respect the results, according to the UN Peace-building Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS).

Launching Kosovo's Standards Implementation Plan today, two weeks after deadly violence rocked the province, the top United Nations envoy for Kosovo, Harri Holkeri, said the plan "is not a panacea, but it is a start."

Calling civilian casualties and human rights violations unacceptable, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today he was "very disturbed" by the continuing conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today submitted to Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders his final plan to settle the Cyprus problem before its entry into the European Union on 1 May, urging them to "seize this chance for peace" in a reunified nation.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared to the opening of an international conference on Afghanistan today that this year's presidential and parliamentary elections will only advance national reconciliation if political parties and candidates can campaign openly and polling can take place safely.

Security sector reform is of high priority in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as prisoners escape from the jail in Bunia and Ituri in the east, but the Transitional Government coordinated well in defeating an incursion into Kinshasa last weekend, the United Nations chief of peacekeeping said today.

An advance party of 30 military officers and five United Nations civilian police officers arrived today in Côte d'Ivoire from neighbouring Ghana, where they were in training for the full peacekeeping mission that is scheduled to be launched on 4 April.

The number of women in developing countries receiving prenatal care has risen 20 per cent since 1990, with the lowest percentage being in South Asia, according to a joint report issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).