The UN Security Council will consider in the coming days a draft resolution put forward by Britain that calls for an expanded UN mandate in Iraq. The current UN mandate on Iraq is set to expire on August 10.

The United Nations is taking steps to promote the application of space technology to help Asian-Pacific countries fight bird flu, drawing on its potential as part of an integrated early-warning system to track the virus’s path in a region that has suffered by far the largest share of both human and avian infections in the world.

Dozens of experts from around the world – including representatives from United Nations agencies, religious and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), law enforcement agencies, Government and research institutions – are meeting in Addis Ababa on ways to eradicate the practice of female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C).

The top United Nations humanitarian official today announced a grant of $40 million from the world body’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to provide life-saving support in 16 so-called forgotten crises around the world.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed an agreement to have a troika comprised of the European Union, Russian Federation and United States lead further negotiations on the future status of Kosovo, the Serbian province administered by the United Nations since 1999.

The United States and Britain have circulated a new draft resolution to UN Security Council members that calls for the UN to expand its activities in Iraq to help promote political reconciliation.

Taiwan's president has renewed its bid to join the United Nations, sending two more letters to leaders of the world body. A spokesman for President Chen Shui-bian says letters were delivered Wednesday, to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and to China's U.N. representative.

Sudan's government says it will abide by a Security Council resolution that paves the way for the United Nations and the African Union to deploy 26,000 peacekeepers to the region. Yet as Nick Wadhams reports from our East Africa bureau in Nairobi, the dominant rebel group in Darfur has its doubts about Khartoum's commitment.

The U.N. Security Council approved the creation of a hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force to quell the violence and instability plaguing the Darfur region of Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and two million others forced to flee their homes.

The United States says a U.N. resolution authorizing as many as 26,000 troops in Sudan's war-torn Dafur region will be finalized by Tuesday. Victoria Cavaliere reports for VOA's New York bureau that western countries have been pressing Sudan since last November to accept an expanded peacekeeping force for Darfur.

Russia is against setting artificial timetables to decide Kosovo's status and attempts to predetermine the outcome, the Foreign Ministry's spokesman said Tuesday. Mikhail Kamynin said status talks could start soon "if they are thoroughly prepared by the Contact Group."

The U.N. refugee agency and U.N. Children's Fund are jointly appealing for $129 million to help get tens of thousands of uprooted Iraqi children back into school. The money will be used to support the governments of Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon provide school for an additional 155,000 young Iraqi refugees during the coming school year.