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The United Nations Security Council today held an emergency session on the latest Israeli military action in Gaza, with numerous speakers urging a formal response to the scale of violence and mounting civilian casualties on the Palestinian side.

With Afghanistan just a week away from its historic, first-ever presidential elections, hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled the country to neighbouring Pakistan are signing up for the vote.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today condemned the deadly terrorist attacks which have wreaked havoc in India, reiterating his long-standing opposition to the targeting of innocent civilians.

With the youngest in the group travelling in her mother’s shoulder bag, the United Nations refugee agency today helped 185 men, women and children from Indonesia’s Papua province complete the first phase of their voluntary relocation in neighbouring Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Deploring a deadly terrorist bomb blast inside a mosque in Pakistan today, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said “no cause or motive can justify attacks on places of worship and innocent civilians."

In a sign of recovery in war-ravaged Liberia, the United Nations refugee agency today began a massive repatriation effort which will bring home 340,000 Liberians scattered throughout West Africa over the course of the next three years.

Angola, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo and Sudan have signed on as members of the International Conference on the Great Lakes region, a United Nations-initiated summit that will try to resolve the many problems bedevilling Central Africa.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today expressed his serious concern over the car bombing in Beirut that wounded a former member of Lebanon's Cabinet and killed another person.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has stepped up its efforts to control the swarms of crop-devouring desert locusts across West Africa after donors responded to the agency’s urgent appeal for more funds by giving $10 million in the past two weeks.

The global trend towards ageing populations will be felt most acutely in developing countries which have only limited resources to respond to the challenges involved, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today in observance of the International Day of Older Persons.