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Just days ahead of a deadline to finalize a plan to reunify Cyprus before its entry into the European Union on 1 May, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today handed over to the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders a draft of the settlement proposal and urged them to seize the moment to settle the decades-old problem “once and for all.”

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today announced a series of disciplinary measures, including calls for the resignation of senior UN officials, following the release of a critical report by a panel that identified institutional and individual failures in assessing the security situation in Baghdad prior to the terrorist attack last August that killed 22 people, including the UN's top envoy in Iraq.

An intergovernmental meeting on the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer has granted limited "critical use exemptions" to 11 developed countries facing a year-end deadline for phasing out the toxic pesticide methyl bromide.

Senior officials from the United Nations and Kosovo today witnessed the start of reconstruction on a building damaged by recent deadly ethnic clashes in the province.

The senior United Nations envoy to Afghanistan today hailed an announcement by President Hamid Karzai indicating that elections are now scheduled for September.

The United Nations labour agency has welcomed a new "ground-breaking," report that calls for an "urgent rethink" of globalization to ensure that benefits are to be more fairly distributed.

On the eve of an international conference on the reconstruction of Afghanistan the top United Nations development official has called for sustained global support as the war-shattered country seeks $27.5 billion over the coming seven years.

In an effort to relocate tens of thousands of people fleeing civil war in western Sudan from the volatile border area to safer locations further inside Chad before the start of the rainy season in May, the United Nations refugee agency yesterday carried out its largest single daily transfer so far.

With Liberians returning from neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea in a sign of increased confidence in the West African country’s peace process, the United Nations refugee agency said today it was scrambling to provide emergency relief since poor security in some areas did not allow returnees to go back to their homes.

Stepping up United Nations efforts to combat the terrorist threat, the Security Council today restructured its Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) in a bid to revitalize the panel’s efforts in fighting the worldwide scourge and adapt to the evolving nature of its mission.