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Concluding that there is “general impunity for torture and ill-treatment in Jordan,” a country which serves as a vice chair on the newly established Human Rights Council, a United Nations rights expert recently returned from there has recommended a raft of measures to strengthen the legal system and prevent such abuses.

Welcoming the swearing in today of judges for Cambodia's long-awaited trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders, accused of horrific crimes, including mass killings, during the 1970s, the United Nations Legal Counsel called on these officials to show the “moral strength” to help create a culture of accountability to replace “the sinister culture of impunity.”

The third and final member of the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus today officially took up his duties at a ceremony in the United Nation Protected Area, part of an effort to resolve some of the consequences of the conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots on the Mediterranean island.

Nearly 4,000 health workers, vaccinators and volunteers are fanning out across Eritrea in a United Nations-backed measles vaccination and Vitamin A supplements campaign targeting almost half a million children aged between the ages of six months and five years.

United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Mark Malloch Brown today opened the yearly session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in Geneva with a call for that body to sharpen its focus on the achievement of the development goals agreed upon at the 2000 Millennium Summit.

World airline scheduled passenger traffic is expected to show robust growth over the next three years following a strong rebound in 2004 and continued resilience in 2005, according to the latest medium-term forecasts from the United Nations aviation agency.

While welcoming the return of airplane parts discovered in Tunisia that belong to the Kuwait Airways Corporation, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his latest report on property seized by Iraq after its 1990 occupation of its neighbour, expresses disappointment that Kuwait’s national archives are still missing.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today met with United Nations officials and peacekeepers in Sierra Leone as well as with the president of the small West African country that the world body helped to nurse back to peace and stability after a disastrous and brutal civil war.

The Central African Republic’s stability is facing threats from new rebel movements in the northern part of the country, the situation in neighbouring Chad and tension between it and Sudan, Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a new report released today.

While welcoming a decision made by the African Union to extend the mandate of its troops in the violence-wracked Darfur region of Sudan for three months to the end of 2006, a senior United Nations envoy warned today that continued militia attacks on internally displaced persons were affecting implementation of the peace agreement agreed in May.