Members of a UN peacekeeping mission engaged in “transactional sex” with more than 225 Haitian women who said they needed to do so to obtain things like food and medication, a sign that sexual exploitation remains significantly underreported in such missions, according to a new report.

Irish troops deployed with the UN peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights, Syria (UNDOF) have been involved in a number of missions to rescue UN colleagues under fire from rebel forces, a Defence Forces spokesperson has confirmed.

Syrian army tanks shelled Aleppo yesterday and a helicopter gunship strafed rebel positions with heavy machine-gun fire as they fought for control of the country’s biggest city.

Armed men ambushed and killed seven United Nations peacekeepers trying to protect villagers in Ivory Coast.

THE commander of UN peacekeeping troops in Lebanon said Irish soldiers have been given one of the country’s most dangerous “hotspots”, close to the contentious border with Israel.

Israel agreed today to pull its troops out of the northern half of a village which straddles the border with Lebanon, defusing a long-standing political dispute but frightening villagers who do not want their community divided.

The British former commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia today told Radovan Karadzic’s war crimes trial how the Serb brought terror and suffering to Muslim enclaves.

The tree at the centre of deadly clashes along the Lebanon-Israel border was in Israeli territory, the UN peacekeeping force said today.

Juno McEnroe reports from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where fighting has displaced thousands of civilians and threatens to escalate into a full-scale, bloody war.

The United Nation’s first all-female peacekeeping force – made up of 105 Indian policewomen – is set to deploy to the troubled west African country of Liberia, an official said today.

The United Nations investigated more than 300 members of UN peacekeeping missions for alleged sexual exploitation and abuse during the past three years and more than half were fired or sent home, a senior UN official said.

Four peacekeepers from Bangladesh have been sent home and 13 other UN personnel serving in southern Sudan are under investigation for alleged serious misconduct, including sexual exploitation and abuse, the United Nations said tonight.

The Israeli pullout from Lebanon was unlikely to be completed before the weekend, a senior army officer said today.

ISRAEL lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon yesterday after European warships began patrolling to keep out weapons shipments for Hezbollah guerrillas, the head of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said.

Europe’s tortuous efforts to pull together contributions for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon could edge forward tomorrow when EU diplomats meet to coordinate positions after Italy’s conditional offer to lead the force.

As the US today declared an “urgent” need for international troops in Lebanon, European nations appeared to be waiting for UN guidance that would clarify the rules of engagement – including the crucial question of using force against Hezbollah.

SIX UN and Red Cross convoys destined for southern Lebanon were delayed yesterday after failing to receive security clearance from Israeli military forces, although another convoy reached the besieged town of Qana.

Two UN convoys destined for southern Lebanon were halted today after they failed to receive necessary security clearance from Israeli military forces and Hezbollah, but another convoy reached the besieged town of Qana, officials said.

The United Nations has decided to remove unarmed observers from their posts along the Israeli-Lebanese border, moving them in with the peacekeeping force in the area, a spokesman said today.

Israel’s prime minister expressed “deep regret” today over the killing of UN peacekeepers in an Israeli airstrike, but rejected UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s charge that the bombing of the UN position was apparently deliberate.

In a phone call to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Israel’s prime minister expressed “deep regret” today over the killing of UN peacekeepers in an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon.

A UN observation post was hit by an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon tonight and there were casualties, a UN spokesman said.

A Lebanese guerrilla was killed and two Lebanese civilians were wounded in cross-border fighting today as Lebanese gunmen responded to Israeli airstrikes by attacking Israel, the Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV said.

The US has run into strong resistance in its bid for a Security Council resolution that would give the United Nations immediate control over peacekeepers in Darfur, diplomats said yesterday.

EIGHT Guatemalan special forces soldiers deployed as UN peacekeepers in Eastern Congo were killed and five more were injured yesterday during an operation against Ugandan rebels, the United Nations said.

Lebanon is demanding that Israel return the corpses of three Hezbollah guerrillas killed in this week’s border clashes, saying such a move was vital to restore calm to the area.

UN FORCES fired tear gas at angry supporters of Liberian soccer star George Weah yesterday after they stoned police and marched to the US embassy to demand a halt to counting in an election Weah says was rigged.

Gunmen killed the honorary French consul to the northern city of Cap-Haitien while he was driving in Haiti’s capital, amid growing insecurity in the hemisphere’s poorest country, the French Embassy said today.

Congo Pygmies have demanded the United Nations prosecute government and rebel fighters accused of slaughtering and eating them as fighting continues in the country’s dense north-eastern jungles.

AMONG the survivors recovering in Kinshasa General Hospital after the Congo air disaster, which saw more than 100 passengers sucked out of their plane when the cargo ramp opened mid-flight, was a policeman, who gave his name only as Katembo.

A British solider in the UN peacekeeping force in Afghanistan has died in hospital after he was accidentally shot in the head in the capital, Kabul, yesterday.

The British-led UN peacekeeping force in Afghanistan has asked the country’s interim administration to explain the alleged coup plot which led to the arrest of hundreds of men in Kabul in the past week.

Hundreds of people were arrested in Kabul in connection with an alleged plot to destabilise the interim administration installed by the UN.

Automatic gunfire from a compound housing Afghan militiamen struck ‘‘very close’’ to patrolling German peacekeeping soldiers in the first such incident in more than a month, the UN peacekeeping force said today.

Most fighters in Sierra Leone's brutal civil war have turned over their weapons to UN peacekeepers.