Syrian rebels holding dozens of Fijian UN peacekeepers hostage have attacked Filipino troops in the Golan Heights, Philippine officials said.

US President Barack Obama has pledged to continue attacking the group responsible for the death of journalist James Foley, despite its threats to kill another American hostage.

Syrian rebels blew up a tunnel packed with explosives in the northern city of Aleppo on Friday, killing at least 20 pro-government fighters, activists and rebels said.

George Clooney has resigned from his United Nations peacekeeping role.

Workers carried away the last charred bodies of victims from a fire that swept through a crowd of Nigerians stealing fuel from a ruptured oil pipeline, and the final death toll stood at 265, the Red Cross said today.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today urged calm Friday amid the “heinous” upsurge of violence in Iraq, saying the bloodshed is designed to widen sectarian divisions and further weaken national unity in the war-battered country.

United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan urged Israel to “do their utmost” to protect civilians after two Palestinian women were killed as they marched into a Gaza combat zone to help free gunmen besieged at a mosque.

The top UN official in Sudan, who accused the army of mobilising Arab militias, has been ordered to leave the country within three days.

An internal UN investigation has concluded that a UN official steered millions of dollars in contracts to a company owned by the government of his native India, in exchange for favours that included low-rent apartments.

Troop commitments from France, Italy and several other European nations mean the United Nations will be able to deploy an initial force of 3,500 peacekeepers to south Lebanon in the coming days as it had hoped, a senior UN official said.

Israeli commandos have raided a Hezbollah stronghold deep in Lebanon, engaging in a fierce gun battle. The Lebanese government threatened to halt further troop deployments to protest what UN officials called a violation of the six-day-old ceasefire.

Soldiers and Tamil Tiger rebels traded artillery and mortar fire in northern Sri Lanka today, an official said, as schools closed in the capital over fears that civilians could be targeted by insurgent bombings.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will send three veteran UN officials to the Middle East in a bid to defuse what he called a “major crisis” there, the United Nations said today.

United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan has urged Iran’s foreign minister to speed up Tehran’s response to a package of incentives from world powers to roll back its nuclear enrichment programme.

The United Nations’ second highest-ranking official yesterday accused the US government of leaving Americans in the dark about the world body’s good works, a rare direct criticism that drew an angry response yesterday from US Ambassador John Bolton.

HUNDREDS of foreign troops struggled to keep East Timor from tipping into civil war yesterday amid widening violence, including a mob attack that killed six relatives of a government minister and set his house ablaze.

Foreign troops today struggled to stave off civil war in East Timor after soldiers gunned down unarmed police in the capital and a mob torched a house filled with children, as the death toll in four days of violence climbed to 23.

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

Relatives and friends of Shiite Muslims killed in a deadly mosque attack carried coffins of the dead through the streets of several Baghdad neighbourhoods today, chanting religious rites and beating their heads and chests.

UN peacekeepers battled attackers today before withdrawing from a western Ivory Coast town along with military observers and other UN staff.

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.

United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has cancelled a trip to Iran in response to increasing tension over the Iranian president’s call for Israel to be “wiped off the map”.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has cancelled a trip to Iran in response to increasing tension over its president’s call for Israel to be “wiped off the map”.

The United Nations has suspended a subsidiary of British catering giant Compass as a supplier for the world body amid an investigation into a food-for-peacekeepers contract scandal.

US and UN officials urged the Shiite-led government to reverse last-minute changes to voting rules for a referendum on Iraq’s new constitution and head off a threatened Sunni boycott.

A top UN public health expert warned yesterday that a new flu pandemic is expected at any time and could kill anywhere between five million and 150 million people – depending on action taken now to control the bird flu epidemic sweeping through Asia.

A top UN public health expert warned today that a new flu pandemic is expected at any time and could kill anywhere between 5 million and 150 million people - depending on action taken now to control the bird flu epidemic sweeping through Asia.

Pressure is mounting on the United Nations nuclear agency to report Iran to the Security Council as it prepares for an emergency meeting today to ease a stand-off with the Tehran regime.

France, Britain and Germany hardened their tone toward Iran, warning that Tehran risked triggering an international crisis and could face UN sanctions if it follows through with a threat to resume its nuclear program.

China is objecting to a US and British demand for a Security Council briefing on a United Nations report condemning Zimbabwe’s slum clearance.

Police set up road blocks today around the southern Afghan city of Kandahar searching for accomplices of a suspected al-Qaida suicide bomber who killed 20 people in one of the worst terror attacks in Afghanistan since the ousting of the Taliban in 2001, officials said.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan fired staff member Joseph Stephanides for wrongdoing in the oil-for-food scandal, a UN spokesman said today – the first dismissal stemming from alleged corruption in the multibillion-dollar programme.

Syrian special forces joined Lebanese troops today at a Lebanese air base near the Syrian border, and shouted “long live Bashar!” in homage to the Syrian leader, as they prepared for a farewell ceremony marking the end of Syria’s 29-year military involvement with its smaller neighbour.

UN officials defended peacekeepers who killed up to 60 militiamen in a gunbattle in Congo, saying the international troops were acting in self-defence and protecting civilians who had been terrorised for years.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has strongly condemned terrorist attacks in Israel and Russia and the gruesome murder of 12 Nepalese civilians in Iraq. The UN Security Council condemned the Israeli suicide bombings and “all other acts of terrorism”.

The UN Staff Union urged Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday to consider withdrawing UN personnel from Afghanistan following the bombing of a UN voter registration site and a spate of attacks on election workers.

Former Indian Foreign Secretary Salman Haidar, is the front-runner to be the new UN envoy to Iraq, diplomats said on Friday.

Two US soldiers and three Iraqis were killed in separate bomb attacks today, a day after UN security experts arrived in the capital to study the possible return of its international staff.

Three Iraqis were killed when a truck bomb exploded soon after a US patrol passed by as two UN security experts arrived in the Iraqi capital Baghdad to study the possible return of international staff.