Security forces and armed men clashed with supporters of Egypt’s ousted president early yesterday, killing at least 65 people in mayhem that underscored an increasingly heavy hand against protests demanding Mohammed Morsi’s return to office.

The death toll in Syria’s civil war has passed 100,000, up from nearly 93,000 just over a month ago, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said.

Rockets and mortar rounds struck a refugee camp for Iranian exiles next to Baghdad’s international airport today, killing six people and wounding about 40, police and UN officials said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged Syria’s regime against using its stockpile of chemical weapons today, warning of “huge consequences” if President Bashar Assad resorts to such weapons of mass destruction.

Governments must speed up talks on a joint response to global warming, which is an “existential challenge for the whole human race”, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned.

Two massive explosions rocked the heart of Damascus today, striking near the army and air force command headquarters and sending huge columns of thick black smoke over the Syrian capital.

Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister and long-time UN diplomat, has agreed to replace former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as peace envoy to Syria, the United Nations has announced.

Syrian troops shelled a rebel-held area of Homs and sent reinforcements to border areas today.

Nations must help Somalia’s fragile leadership tackle terrorism, piracy and hunger or be prepared to pay the price, British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned at an international conference on the troubled east African nation’s future.

Diplomats claimed considerable progress today towards overcoming Russian objections to a United Nations Security Council resolution aimed at halting the violence in Syria.

The monthly average of armed clashes, roadside bombings and other violence in Afghanistan is running 39% ahead of last year’s figure, the United Nations reported, with more complex suicide operations involving multiple bombers and gunmen.

The monthly average of armed clashes, roadside bombings and other violence in Afghanistan is running 39% ahead of last year’s figure, the UN has reported, with more complex suicide operations involving multiple bombers and gunmen.

Nations today agreed to launch a UN-led investigation of Syria's bloody crackdown on its uprising, demanding that its government immediately stop the violence, release political prisoners and lift restrictions on the news media and access to the internet.

The UN chief said that Belarus has broken an international arms embargo on Ivory Coast by shipping three attack helicopters to military forces supporting the long-time ruler who refuses to cede power after losing a presidential election.

Deep rifts have opened in Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, with Libyan government officials at home and abroad resigning, air force pilots defecting and a bloody crackdown on protest in the capital of Tripoli, where cars and buildings were burned.

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 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is expected to visit some areas devastated by flooding in Pakistan this weekend.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Haiti today to support relief efforts in the earthquake-hit nation.

THOUSANDS died in a major earthquake that destroyed the presidential palace, schools, hospitals and hillside shanties in Haiti, the country’s president said yesterday as nations across the world geared up for a big relief operation.

THE top UN official in Afghanistan said yesterday he will not renew his two-year contract when it expires in March.

Elections in Burma will not be "credible" without pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, according to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

The UN will name Bill Clinton its special envoy to Haiti, his spokesman said, in a move that could capitalise on the former US president’s years of involvement with the impoverished nation to burnish the international body’s image there.

Despite years of inaction by Sudan’s government, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon held out hope that President Omar al-Bashir might still order his country’s courts to prosecute war crimes in Darfur and possibly avert his own war crimes trial by the International Criminal Court.

Israeli forces pounded dozens of Hamas targets early today as the army kept up pressure on the Islamic militant group ahead of a crucial vote on whether to end Israel’s punishing three-week-long campaign against Gaza’s rulers.

Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo fought pro-government militiamen for a second day in the town of Kiwanja today, forcing thousands to flee.

Burma today announced that 84,500 people perished in last month’s cyclone, up from its earlier toll of 77,700 for the devastating storm that drew international pleas for the insular government to accept outside help.

International aid workers today finally began entering Burma’s cyclone-devastated delta after being blocked for more than three weeks by the country’s military junta.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the Burmese junta's decision to allow "all aid workers" into the country to help cyclone survivors, after weeks of refusing access to foreign relief experts.

Nobel Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta vowed to heal deep political and social rifts in East Timor after poll results showed him on course for a landslide victory in presidential elections in Asia’s newest nation.

Israel has agreed to resume face-to-face talks with a moderate, Western-backed Palestinian leader who is sharing power with Islamic Hamas militants, a US official said.