Fourteen members of the United Nations Security Council pointed a collective finger at the United States for blocking condemnation of Israel’s stepped-up settlement programme in Palestinian territory.

A MONUMENT unveiled yesterday in honour of a brave young Irish soldier, who has been missing in action for 50 years, will help ensure his memory and sacrifice endures, his family said.

RWANDA has threatened to withdraw its troops from United Nations peacekeeping operations if the world body publishes a report accusing the Rwandan army of committing possible genocide in Congo in the 1990s, Rwanda’s foreign minister says in a letter sent to the UN.

A Sudanese woman facing the lash for wearing trousers in public will have to wait another month to hear her fate, a judge decided today.

Preparations are in full swing in the run-up to the presidential elections in Afghanistan next month and no effort will be spared to ensure security, said the United Nations.

REBEL leader Laurent Nkunda yesterday called for ceasefire talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo government after meeting a UN peace envoy even as new clashes broke out between his fighters and the army.

THE European Union is set to complete authorisation of a big supervisory mission in Kosovo this week, just before the territory is expected to declare independence from Serbia, diplomats and EU officials said.

Russia warned Kosovo’s leaders that if they declare independence the territory will never become a member of the United Nations or other international political institutions.

Britain today welcomed the appointment of a new top United Nations envoy to Iraq.

SCIENTISTS have discovered the underground remnants of an ancient lake in Sudan’s arid Darfur region, offering hope of tapping a precious resource and easing water scarcity, which experts say is the root of much of the unrest in the region.

The world’s major powers have sent a strong signal to Iran that they remain united in seeking to rein in its nuclear ambitions.

FOUR UN peacekeepers in southern Sudan have been sent home in the past year following investigations of alleged sexual abuse and the organisation is looking into reports that more than 20 children were raped and abused, a UN spokeswoman has 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.

United Nations peacekeepers in southern Sudan reportedly face several allegations of raping and sexually abusing children, some as young as 12.

The US has objected to a proposed Russian statement expressing grave concern at Georgia’s recent provocative actions, including the arrest of four Russian officers for alleged spying and deploying troops in part of the breakaway province of Abkhazia.

East Timorese soldiers opened fire today on unarmed police in the capital Dili, killing nine and wounding 27, the UN spokesman said.

Suspending uranium enrichment was “not on our agenda”, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman insisted today as he declared UN Security Council intervention would be “completely illegal”.

The United Nations has decided to significantly reduce UN staff in parts of Sudan’s volatile West Darfur region because of increasing insecurity and the growing possibility of a war between Sudan and neighbouring Chad.

Eritrea’s order to expel US, Canadian and European members of the UN peacekeeping mission that monitors the tense border with neighbouring Ethiopia is likely to raise concerns about whether the peacekeepers can work effectively.

Eritrea has ordered the expulsion of US, Canadian, Russian and other European staff of the UN peacekeeping mission that monitors the tense border with neighbouring Ethiopia, United Nations officials said today.

Irish soldiers may be deployed to Sierra Leone as part of a United Nations mission to secure a court trying people charged with war crimes, it emerged today.

LIBERIA’S top female politician took a strong lead over her millionaire football star opponent in early returns from the war-ravaged West African nation’s presidential run-off.

Liberia’s top female politician took a strong lead over her millionaire football star opponent in early returns from the war-ravaged West African nation’s presidential runoff.

The 35-page final document that world leaders are set to adopt at the end of a UN summit devotes just one paragraph to the issue that consumed the 191 UN member states for months but proved so divisive that it had to be shelved - expanding the powerful Security Council.

The United Nations begins a three-day fact-finding mission in troubled Darfur today to establish whether the Sudanese government has fulfilled its pledges to improve security and rein in Arab militia accused of months of atrocities.

Sudanese authorities have restored aid deliveries to a camp for 90,000 displaced people in Darfur, UN officials said, three days after soldiers reportedly closed the camp following a mob killing of an alleged pro-government militiaman.

The US government has expelled two Iranian security guards at Iran’s UN Mission for activities “incompatible with their duties,” a US official said today, using the diplomatic language for spying.

A French woman working for the United Nations was shot and killed in central Afghanistan today by a man on a motorcycle who opened fire on her UN vehicle, an official said.

The last contingent of Irish troops to serve as UN peacekeepers in the Horn of Africa has left Eritrea but investigations continue into allegations of “sexual misbehaviour” by members of the group that preceded them, the UN said today.

THE United Nations said yesterday it had found another 30 decomposing and mutilated bodies in the east Congo town of Bunia, bringing the death toll from days of fighting between tribal militias to more than 300.

SAUDI ARABIA has told the US it will not be allowed use the kingdom’s soil for any attack on Iraq, Foreign Minister Prince Saud said yesterday.

The UN Security Council has unanimously approved a US resolution welcoming a fact-finding mission to look into Israeli military action in Jenin.