EU leaders backed off demanding a no-fly zone over Libya, saying they would leave it up to the UN to decide, but they united in demanding that Gaddafi go and declaring he no longer represented the country or its people.

UN officials say they are getting reports that child soldiers are being recruited to fight for Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in Libya, which would be a war crime.

Nepal’s government and former communist rebels have signed an agreement to free nearly 3,000 child soldiers who have been confined in United Nations-monitored camps since a Maoist insurgency ended in 2006.

Israeli soldiers used an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a shield during the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, UN human rights experts said today.

Iraqi children are being recruited as suicide bombers by various militias and insurgent groups, the United Nations said today.