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With recent progress in the Middle East peace process affording a glimmer of hope, both sides must now build momentum and mutual trust, with the Palestinians disarming terrorists, and Israel easing the daily lives of Palestinians and releasing more prisoners, the top United Nations Middle East envoy told the Security Council today.

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) has adopted a resolution concerning its role in implementing the outcomes of major United Nations conferences and summits, deciding to take the necessary steps to put into action the provisions relevant to its work and its subsidiary machinery.

The United Nations Security Council today welcomed Ethiopia's and Eritrea's acceptance as final and binding an agreement on the delimitation of the border between the two countries, and urged them to cooperation fully with the commission responsible for demarking the boundary.

The top United Nations envoy for Iraq heard more calls for broadening the world body's role there while visiting neighbouring Iran today even as major governments, including the United States, which runs the current ruling Provisional Authority in Baghdad, are raising that possibility with Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today hailed the historic swearing-in of the four Vice-Presidents who will head up the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) new power-sharing transitional government as a "milestone" in the war-weary country's search for lasting peace.

The conflict in Iraq may be over but children continue to be killed and maimed at a steady pace by the remnants of war - coalition cluster bombs looking like toys, thousands of tons of Iraqi munitions abandoned in residential areas and leaking missiles lying around Baghdad - the United Nations children's agency said today.

The top United Nations Middle East envoy today denied a report in an Israeli newspaper about his meeting with Syrian President Bashir al Assad with regard to the whereabouts of missing Israelis and to the United States.

Hailed as an "unsung hero" in the global fight against hunger, Catherine Bertini, United Nations Under Secretary-General for Management and former head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), has been awarded the 2003 World Food Prize.

A United Nations expert on the independence of judges and lawyers expressed "grave concern" today over the decision of Guatemala's Constitutional Court to allow a former President accused of committing serious human rights crimes during his tenure to run in presidential elections in November.

The chief of the United Nations agency for urban settlements today welcomed the invitation by the African Union to collaborate in fighting the urbanization of poverty, condemning millions to unemployment, food insecurity and other problems generated by squalid living conditions.