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Almost four out of every five estimated eligible voters in Afghanistan have registered for the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, the United Nations Assistance Mission in the country (UNAMA) announced today.

The World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today mark the 60th anniversary of their founding at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in July 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women is preparing a statement urging the new Iraqi authorities to ensure gender equality throughout the process of political transition and reconstruction, its chairperson said today at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

A former businessman alleged to have supervised the massacre of some 2,000 Tutsi civilians taking shelter in a Rwandan church in 1994 today pleaded not guilty at a United Nations war crimes tribunal to genocide and three other charges.

Emphasizing the importance of security for United Nations activities in Iraq, Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his newly-appointed senior envoy to the country, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, said today this work will focus on supporting national efforts to achieve the political transition.

Two Sudanese refugees were killed today when Government forces from Chad tried to quell a wave of violent unrest at camps in the east of the country, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

The new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, who took up her position at the beginning of the month, today put protecting the rights of the most vulnerable people at the top of her list of priorities as she publicly outlined her work programme for the first time.

Seeking to satisfy basic health needs and prevent epidemics among returning refugees in Burundi, where a decade of war displaced over 1 million people and destroyed hospitals and health centres, United Nations humanitarian agencies are teaming up to help the small central African nation move towards peace and development.

Several years of poor rainfall, leading to severe crop failure, has brought Kenya to the brink of declaring a national disaster, the United Nations said today.

The current turmoil in the Palestinian Authority should prompt reforms in the security sector and the political power structure, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.