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The recent national political dialogue in Lebanon has forged consensus on how to consolidate the political integrity of the country, but further progress requires the cooperation of Syria, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in his latest report on the subject, which was presented to the Security Council today.

Dominica today brought a case against Switzerland to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, concerning alleged violations with respect to a diplomatic envoy to the UN in Geneva.

With 2,000 children out of an original total of 20,000 still associated with armed forces and groups in Southern Sudan, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has welcomed latest demobilization of 250 youngsters, the biggest of its kind since the signature of a peace accord ended a two decades of civil war in January 2005.

The United Nations refugee today welcomed Syria’s acceptance of 181 Palestinians stranded in difficult conditions at the Iraqi-Jordanian border after they fled Baghdad out of fear for their security.

Under the pressure from soaring oil prices and growing environmental constraints, momentum is gathering for a major international switch from fossil fuels to renewable bio-energy sources such as sugar cane or sunflower seeds, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, at present on a visit to East Africa, is expected to visit Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region later this week, less than a month after UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland was banned from touring the area.

The United Nations today marked Africa Malaria Day by highlighting the vital need to provide universal access to artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) as quickly as possible on a continent where the mosquito-borne disease kills an estimated 1 million children below the age of five every year.

With a projected worldwide shortage of 18 million teachers over the next decade, most critically in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab States, a United Nations report released today advocates training parents and teaching assistants to fill the gap, along with other innovative solutions.

With up to a million and a half people displaced by civil war and conflicts over land and ethnicity in Côte d'Ivoire, a senior United Nation official today called on the authorities, humanitarian organizations and international donors to implement a quick and detailed plan of action to help these largely forgotten victims.

The Nepalese authorities have told United Nations human rights officials that all those detained during the recent pro-democracy demonstrations which disrupted the Himalayan kingdom will be released, a UN spokesman said today.