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Up to 6 million vulnerable people in Afghanistan who depend on outside aid to survive face a deteriorating situation, as United Nations relief flights are indefinitely suspended and international aid workers have left the country, UN officials warned today.

The terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September underscore the need to cut the world's arsenal of nuclear weapons, according to a top United Nations disarmament official.

A new report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan published today examines in detail how the world community and the United Nations are putting into practice the goals set out in a landmark declaration adopted last year at the Millennium Summit.

The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) today reported that a meeting to plan disarmament activities in the country had been successfully held in Makeni, two weeks after the originally scheduled talks had to be postponed because of a boycott by the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

The United Nations refugee agency today called for a transitional international security presence before the departure of NATO forces to allow the safe return of refugees and displaced people in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

More than 300 refugees returned from camps in Indonesian West Timor today in a process facilitated by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) along with leaders from both the pro-independence and pro-autonomy movements, the UN operation said in a statement.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has started emergency projects for the drought-stricken farmers and their families in Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

The United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) - an initiative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan - has been nominated to receive a Stockholm Challenge Award for its support of rehabilitation efforts in the wake of the devastating super cyclone that hit Orissa, India, in 1999.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and French President Jacques Chirac today stressed the importance of building a broad international coalition in the fight against terrorism.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today received the credentials of the new United States Permanent Representative to the UN, John D. Negroponte, who later joined Mr. Annan in welcoming American philanthropist Ted Turner as he presented a cheque for over $31 million to help cover US dues to the world body.