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The United Nations health agency said today the SARS situation in China is considered potentially serious because of the multiple opportunities for exposure by hundreds of potential contacts after four possible cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - including one death - were reported in the last two days.

Voicing alarm at the growing impact of the ongoing fighting on Iraqi children, including a mounting death toll in recent days, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has called on all parties to ensure the protection of children and all civilians as required by international humanitarian law.

With more than 600 million people, mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa, facing the daily threat of death from malaria since new treatments are unavailable where they live, the United Nations today called on donor countries and pharmaceutical firms to provide the resources necessary to conquer new drug-resistant strains.

The president of Albania today paid the first official visit ever by an Albanian head of State to United Nations-administered Kosovo just a month after tensions between ethnic Albanians and Serbs boiled over into violence in which 19 people died and hundreds were injured.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in an effort to strengthen human rights observance worldwide, has approved the provision of advisory services and technical cooperation to several countries.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan today voiced concern that some militia commanders were slow in handing over lists of their soldiers, posing potential stumbling blocks to achieving the goal of disarming 40 per cent of the militias by September. It said that whatever measures were needed would be taken.

Despite a marked increase over the past decade in children attending primary and secondary schools worldwide, there remain substantial differences between countries and regions ranging from as much as over 17 years of education to as little as two years, according to a new United Nations report released today.

With rice feeding more than half the world’s population and providing income for millions of rice processors and traders, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today launched a global photography contest as part of a year-long campaign to promote improved production and access to this vital crop.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today voiced alarm at the deadly consequences of a two-day Israeli incursion into the northern Gaza Strip, noting that there were reportedly at least 10 civilians, including five children under the age of 15, among the Palestinian deaths.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today voiced confidence that an independent panel into allegations of corruption in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme will yield results, and voiced hope that its work would proceed apace.