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As the first major Atlantic hurricane of the season made landfall in Mexico today after wreaking havoc across the Caribbean region, United Nations officials are surveying the aftermath of the storm as well as the most critical needs of those affected.

With the new school year kicking off on Sunday in Jordan, the United Nations refugee agency today praised the country for opening the doors of its local schools to tens of thousands of Iraqi children who have fled war in their homeland.

The Sudanese military and allied armed groups abducted women and girls and kept many as sex slaves for a month after an attack on villages in Darfur near the end of last year, the United Nations human rights office reported today, saying the abuses may constitute war crimes before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and naming individuals who could be held responsible.

Top United Nations and international police officers, along with law enforcement and human rights experts will gather in the Australian capital Canberra on 30 August for two days of closed-door meetings to discuss ways of improving international policing through strengthening cooperation between the world body and Member States.

Voicing relief that 149 Hmong refugees from Laos held in a detention centre in Thailand had ended a hunger strike, the United Nations refugee agency today called on the Thai Government to release them, all recognized refugees.

Visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his Iraqi counterpart Hoshiyar Zebari laid wreaths at the memorial centre of the United Nations compound in Baghdad yesterday to pay tribute to the 22 people killed in the terrorist bomb attack exactly four years earlier on the then-UN headquarters, the Canal Hotel.

A United Nations envoy warned today that the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Afghanistan could rise significantly if the conflict there continues at the current rate, adding to the multitude of Afghans that have already fled their homes.

The war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor has been postponed until early next year after judges at the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) agreed today to give defence lawyers more time to study the evidence.

The United Nations has deployed a team of disaster assessment and coordination experts to the Caribbean to assist countries hit by Hurricane Dean which has left a trail of death and destruction in its rampage past St. Lucia, the Dominican Republic, Dominica, Martinique, Haiti, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands and on towards the coast of Mexico.

The top United Nations political official today, having just returned from Nepal, hailed the preparations for upcoming elections in the Himalayan nation and urged all political parties to ensure that the process remains on track.