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The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is supporting a Bulgarian initiative to improve living conditions and expand job opportunities for 46,000 Roma and 5,000 ethnic Turks living in run-down neighbourhoods in six municipalities.

The second stage of weapons disposal in Bougainville is now complete, bringing the island closer to the hope of holding elections to establish an autonomous government, the head of the United Nations mission there told the Security Council today.

The United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and a contingent of the UN-authorized peacekeeping force in the country have dispatched a joint assessment team to Nyanda to investigate reports that fresh ethnic violence in the tiny northeastern village claimed the lives of at least nine people.

Stepping up its campaign against tobacco use, which kills 4.9 million people each year, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today urged governments to include anti-addiction treatments as part of comprehensive tobacco control programmes.

In the wake of the car bomb attack at the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, which killed over a dozen people, the Acting United Nations human rights chief renewed his appeal for a rallying of public sentiment against terrorism and for justice to be meted out to terrorists in accordance with international human rights law.

The United Nations mission in Kosovo today offered a reward of 50,000 Euros for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators of the murder of a UN police officer over the weekend, and Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged all sides to cooperate in the investigation into this "appalling act."

Pleased with the speedy deployment of a vanguard West African peacekeeping force in Liberia less than three days after its authorization by the United Nations Security Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called on all parties in the country to cease hostilities at once and work for a comprehensive peace accord.

While deploring any kind of prejudice and discrimination and speaking out for people's right to make their own choices, Secretary-General Kofi Annan feels the United Nations should not involve itself in the dispute over the issues of same sex marriage, a spokesman for Mr. Annan said today.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) expressed deep concern today over an estimated 300,000 people cut off by floods in the northern part of Sudan, where it is already feeding 3.2 million people affected by war and drought, and warned that it might have to slash rations because of a severe shortfall in funding.

On the first day of an official visit to Ecuador, the chief of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today praised the country’s new law aimed at improving the lives of boys and girls, and urged authorities to make the necessary budget allocations to enable its full implementation.