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The senior United Nations envoy for the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, said today all parties to the Middle East conflict should allow the international community to work out a solution, instead of taking the kind of unilateral action that has brought a complete standstill to diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation.

United Nations Security Council members today welcomed the signing of a power-sharing agreement designed to end a 10-year civil war in Burundi and urged the two signatories to negotiate an accord on the outstanding issues without delay.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, by using their foundation to fight HIV/AIDS, show their understanding that because the pandemic is a unique global crisis it needs global partnerships to defeat it, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.

Maj. Gen. Sajjad Akram of Pakistan has been appointed as the Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL).

The war in Iraq and its aftermath have forced the United Nations to face "fundamental questions" and, in the process, to find a weakening of the consensus regarding the world's ills found just three years ago, United Nations Deputy-Secretary-General Louise Fréchette said today.

Citing new indictments, despite restricted cooperation from the governments involved, the President of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the chief prosecutor told the Security Council today that the trials of key suspects were unlikely to be completed by the target date of 2008.

Amid signs that a ceasefire in Sudan may be ending prematurely, 65,000 Sudanese refugees living along the border with Chad have to be transferred to new, safer locations, the United Nations refugee agency said today.

The new prosecutor for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) told the Security Council today that he has put in place methods of reviewing dozens of cases so that he can soon determine realistic figures for the work to be completed.

The top United Nations advocate for poor countries said today that microcredit programmes are the most effective way to aid in development, particularly for impoverished women, and urged Member States to contribute to the funds that supply the money that backs the loans.

The number of people fleeing rural conflicts and taking shelter in Colombia's capital, Bogotá, has skyrocketed, but they have had little or no assistance with integration into city life, according to a report issued by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).