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United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan held separate talks in New York today with top African and European officials on the situations in Darfur, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The United Nations has granted nearly $2 million from its newly launched standing emergency fund to the World Health Organization (WHO) to quickly boost programmes to stem suffering and death as drought overwhelms the Horn of Africa.

The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) today announced that the Swedish Government has accepted its request to conduct an independent audit of the Hague-based court’s Detention Unit.

The United Nations panel of experts that monitors the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights today wrapped up its eighty-sixth session, after examining compliance reports submitted by Norway, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called on Cambodia’s Government to continue to cooperate with UN human rights officials in the Asian country, expressing concern at reported remarks that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had denounced them.

Israel’s disengagement from Gaza last year was by and large environmentally clean, providing important lessons for possible further disengagements in the West Bank and offering a potential bridge-building element in a region torn by conflict, according to a United Nations report released today.

Four of the world’s tiniest countries – San Marino, Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco – with a total area of 691.15 square kilometres, less than four times the size of Washington, D.C., and a total population of some 165,000, have pooled contributions to help a United Nations AIDS campaign in the African country of Gabon.

The refusal of the Hamas-led Palestinian Government to commit to non-violence, recognition of Israel and other principles will inevitably have an effect on direct assistance to it, the Middle East diplomatic Quartet made up of the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia said today.

Expressing “serious concern” about persistent and forced evictions in Angola, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing today called on the country’s Government to comply with its human rights obligations and promptly act on this “gross violation of human rights.”

Recognizing serious differences between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as they transition to new governments, a United Nations political official today called on both sides to keep the plight of residents of Gaza and the West Bank from deteriorating, as he briefed the Security Council on developments in the Middle East.