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In the year following the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, “a great deal has been accomplished,” ranging from the immediate prevention of outbreaks of disease, the placing of transitional shelters, schools and other facilities to starting the replacement of permanent schools, health centres and homes, a senior United Nations official said today.

The General Assembly could agree by as early as tomorrow on the United Nations’ budget for the next two years, the Assembly’s President Jan Eliasson said today, after weeks of contentious and often slow-moving talks on the issue.

The Security Council has congratulated the people of Afghanistan on the inauguration of their new Parliament, which marked the completion of the political process set in motion four years ago at United Nations-sponsored talks in Bonn, Germany, after the ouster of the Taliban regime.

With the United Nation mission that over the past six years has brought peace and stability to Sierra Leone winding up this month, the Security Council has called on donors and development partners to continue their support to consolidate the West African country’s rebirth after a vicious civil war.

After receiving reports that the situation in Liberia is still a threat to international peace and that its natural resources are still not being used in a way that benefits its people, the United Nations Security Council has renewed the sanctions regime it imposed on the war-torn country in 2001, which now includes timber, travel, arms and diamond embargoes.

Up to 2 million people in Southern Somalia are likely to be in a ‘humanitarian emergency’ or ‘acute food and livelihood crisis’ for at least the next six months due to failed rains, double the number previously projected, according to the latest report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

A United Nations peacekeeper was shot near a suburb of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and later died in a UN hospital of his wounds, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) said.

Outlining his top priorities for 2006, his last year as United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan said today that alongside efforts to promote peace and combat poverty and disease, he was determined to follow through on his wide-ranging agenda of reform and renewal of the world body.

The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) today praised the decision of the losing party to halt its challenge of the results of last month’s run-off presidential elections - the culmination of efforts to move the West African nation toward peace and democracy after 14 years of civil war.

Expressing serious concern at the continuation of hostilities by a rebel group in Burundi despite the successful transition to a democratically-elected Government there, the United Nations Security Council today extended the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country for six months until 1 July 2006.