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Although the male-dominated world of peacekeeping is opening up to women, they still make up just a fraction of senior officials in the field, the United Nations' top peacekeeping manager said today.

The Security Council today called on the United Nations to make a comprehensive, system-wide effort to end the continuing violence against women and girls in war and to give women a much stronger voice during post-conflict peace processes.

The United Nations refugee agency has welcomed the Italian Government’s decision to allow 13 Turkish asylum-seekers – who had been stranded for almost two weeks aboard a commercial freighter in the Mediterranean Sea – to land in Sicily.

The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today condemned the murder of a Bangladeshi journalist and voiced concern about the increasing frequency of such killings in the country.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today congratulated Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel on what the UN leader described as the historic vote in the Knesset, which produced a clear majority in favour of the Israeli leader's initiative to withdraw from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank.

With 10 per cent of patients being infected or otherwise harmed during their hospital stay, the United Nations public health agency today launched a programme to set worldwide standards that would reduce the number of preventable new illnesses, injuries and deaths that now cost billions of dollars.

Though peace talks on the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict are at a virtual standstill, the search must continue for a permanent solution, the United Nations Security Council said today.

The United Nations envoy for Iraq, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, met with Foreign Minister Hoshiar Zubari today for talks on the upcoming international conference on Iraq as well as the security situation and preparations for the country's first democratic elections slated for next January.

United Nations operations deployed to strife-torn countries are leading the effort to protect the youngest victims of war, the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict says.

Whether buoyed or shaken by what they have learnt about the damage to their districts during 14 years of civil war, the largest convoy of Liberian refugees today started a United Nations-organized road trip home from Sierra Leone, becoming the fourth group among the 340,000 of their countrymen in West African camps to make the journey so far.