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United Nations peacekeepers, in close coordination with the Lebanese army, are investigating a significant cache of explosives found in southern Lebanon near Israel, the latest such incident in an area where Israel and Hizbollah militants fought a 34-day war in 2006.

The United Nations has dispatched a long range military patrol to help defuse tensions and reduce chances of reprisal attacks at the site of deadly ethnic clashes in Southern Sudan where Government and separatist forces fought a two-decades-long war until a peace accord in 2005.

Children cannot consent to their own exploitation, making the use of children in warfare “particularly abusive,” a top United Nations official said today at the trial of a Congolese warlord accused of enlisting child soldiers.

A team of United Nations independent experts today called for those behind the 2007 incident where 17 people were killed in the Iraqi capital to be brought to justice, following the dismissal of an indictment against five private security guards by a United States court.

The head of the United Nations agency charged with defending the freedom of the press today condemned last week’s killing of a Canadian journalist and kidnapping of two French television reporters in Afghanistan.

The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today paid tribute to Paul Ahyi, a Togolese painter and sculptor who had served as a UNESCO Artist for Peace since September 2009 until his death earlier this week.

A controversial United Nations-backed Government offensive against rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), during which Congolese soldiers are alleged to have committed massacres and gang-rape, has been replaced by a new UN-supported operation with a central focus on protecting civilians.

An independent United Nations human rights expert said today there are strong indications that the video of alleged extrajudicial executions by Sri Lankan soldiers that aired last August on British television is authentic, and called for an inquiry into possible war crimes committed during the conflict with Tamil rebels.

The first batch of thousands of child soldiers, who served in the Maoist army during Nepal’s decade-long civil war, returned to civilian life today, the United Nations announced, voicing hope that the discharge will speed up the peace process in the Asian nation.

The United Nations is sending health care kits and other supplies for 30,000 victims of massive flooding in Kenya, where thousands of others are feared to be at risk if heavy rains persist.