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With the number of Burundians returning home from Tanzania having rising over the last few weeks, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today voiced concern that the repatriations have not been fully voluntary.

The United Nations International Labour Office (ILO) opened its three-week annual conference in Geneva today with an agenda ranging from a new plan for fighting poverty worldwide by promoting decent work to enhancing safety and security in the workplace and eliminating discrimination.

Aware that visiting non-self-governing territories can provide an effective way to study the situation on the ground and determine the aspirations of the peoples, a United Nations special panel dealing with decolonization issues called on administering Powers to cooperate with efforts to send UN visiting missions to the such territories.

The top United Nations official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, met with his counterparts from the United Kingdom and United States today to discuss the world body’s role in the country’s reconstruction.

Though conditions in Cyprus have improved somewhat – with continued calm along ceasefire lines and the easing of restrictions at some Turkish Cypriot crossing points – United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has requested that the mandate of the UN mission in the country be extended until the end of the year.

The Government of Germany has approved plans to convert former government and parliament buildings in Bonn over the next two years to a campus housing the offices of various United Nations agencies.

While welcoming recent progress in the implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis peace accord for Côte d’Ivoire, members of the United Nations Security Council today stressed again their concern at the humanitarian situation in the country.

With the development of commercial diagnostic tests for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) progressing slower than initially hoped, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said its network of laboratories are working to expedite the process by providing critical specimen to scientists.

The situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) needs to be tackled on two fronts – taking steps to calm war-ravaged Bunia and pressing forward on the political side with the formation of a transitional government, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.

Faced with the proliferation of non-government organizations (NGOs), the chairman of a panel of prominent figures convened by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today he would seek “some creative mechanisms and instruments” to smooth a consultative relationship between the world body and non-government actors.