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Negotiations on a plan to reunify Cyprus before its entry into the European Union on 1 May are on schedule, even though the parties are not always in face-to-face discussions, the United Nations envoy at the talks said today.

With a history of contributing as much money as some of the world's biggest donor States, the Tokyo-based Drug Abuse Prevention Centre (DAPC) has presented the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) with another $190,000 to help it do its work around the world.

Weighing Secretary-General Kofi Annan's recommendations to reduce conflict in West Africa, the United Nations Security Council today said it would consider facilitating cross-border operations and strengthening cooperation among the UN peacekeeping missions in the region.

The United Nations Security Council today failed to adopt a resolution that would have condemned the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, with the United States vetoing what it called a one-sided text.

An "unprecedented wave of oppression" has taken place in Cuba, with many arrests, quick trials without lawyers present, very heavy sentences and conditions of detention that are of great concern, according to a senior United Nations human rights official.

The international community must help Iraq to foster democracy, the United Nations expert charged with monitoring abuses in the country today told the Geneva-based Commission on Human Rights.

Up to a third of the world's people do not meet their physical and intellectual potential because of vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and without urgent action to fortify and supplement foods children in developing nations will remain at risk of underachieving, according to a new United Nations report released today.

With some 8.8 million new tuberculosis cases each year, about half of them infectious, the number of patients diagnosed and treated under DOTS, the most effective control strategy, is now rising much faster than at any time since its expansion in 1995, growing by 50 per cent in two years, according to a new United Nations report.

Ahead of the planned transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on 30 June, the Security Council today strongly supported Secretary-General Kofi Annan's decision to send United Nations experts to Iraq to help with the handover of power and future elections.

Voicing shock and outrage, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the killing of two United Nations police officers in Kosovo, coming less than a week after the worst ethnic clashes since the world body took over administration of the province nearly five years ago.