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United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called upon the Forces Nouvelles in Côte d'Ivoire to resume participation in the Government of National Reconciliation, which it abandoned last week.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Envoy for Myanmar has urged its government to release detained democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other officials of her party, a UN spokesman said today.

Newly minted United Nations peacekeepers brought the situation in war-torn Liberia's capital, Monrovia, under control today after a night of random shooting following clashes yesterday that killed three people.

As the Security Council today began discussing a new United States draft resolution on Iraq, which according to a US representative seeks to enhance the United Nations role in Iraq, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that - at first glance - the draft did not go in the direction he had recommended.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in its annual world economic forecast released today, challenged industrialized countries struggling to get out of a slump to coordinate growth policies, increase global demand and head off the threat of deflation.

As the fifty-eighth General Assembly wound up its annual high-level debate today, Assembly President Julian Hunte said the speakers emphasized the vital necessity of the United Nations multilateral approaches to global crises in these unsettled times and asked the 191-member body to focus on such issues as poverty, HIV/AIDS, global economic equity and environmental protection.

Older people represent a powerful but untapped resource for society and can make an invaluable contribution to achieving the goals set by the United Nations Millennium Summit of halving many of the world’s ills by 2015, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today in a message marking the International Day of Older Persons.

With the clock ticking towards a “decisive” and “non-negotiable” deadline of 31 October, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency today called on Iran to provide “full transparency and full disclosure” to corroborate its assertions that it is not seeking to produce nuclear weapons.

On the eve of European Union (EU) talks on asylum procedures, the United Nations refugee agency today said it has warned member states that proposed legislation on so-called “safe” countries could “seriously compromise the protection of refugees.”

The withdrawal of most international staff from Iraq has had no impact so far on essential United Nations programmes in the country, such as food distribution, water sanitation, medical supplies and preparations for the next planting season, the UN’s acting head of operations in the country said today.