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Although 60 per cent of the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza fall below the poverty line, aid programmes have had to be cut back drastically because of the low response to appeals for donations, the chief of the main United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees said today.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today hailed the adoption in Iran of a five-nation treaty to protect the fragile environment of the Caspian Sea, the world's largest freshwater lake.

A United Nations-backed conference, whose first phase is to be broadcast worldwide from Switzerland in December, will focus more on opportunities than on problems as it grapples with closing the digital gap between rich countries and poor, a senior UN official said today.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today appointed a 16-person blue-ribbon panel to look into new global security threats and reform of the international system, which he first announced in his speech to the General Assembly in September.

Some 70,000 families in two drought-stricken Ethiopian provinces are receiving food crop seeds that can be planted late in the delayed rainy season in the hope that they will not need emergency food aid, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said today.

The Security Council delegation touring Afghanistan spent almost nine hours holding meetings with officials in the capital Kabul today, on the third day of its mission to the country.

The number of Iraqi women who die in pregnancy or in childbirth has almost tripled since 1990, according to a survey released today by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The United Nations protocol against the smuggling of migrants will enter into force in January next year after Azerbaijan became the fortieth country to ratify the measure.

The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) today confirmed a report from an Eritrean officer that a shooting took place over the weekend and said it was investigating the incident.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent his condolences today to the many victims of flash floods in Indonesia earlier this week as the United Nations sent staff to the affected area to help coordinate the emergency response.