New York  - The restoration of funding of United Nations population programmes by the Obama administration will help women, girls and their families around the world, the UN Population Fund said Thursday.

US President Barack Obama signed a 410-billion-dollar budget for the rest of the fiscal year on Wednesday that included restoring US contribution of 50 million dollars a year to the fund.

The Hague  - The Hague will host a United Nations conference on the future of Afghanistan at the end of the month, although it was unclear Wednesday whether or not Iran had been invited to attend.

The summit, to be chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, will take place on March 31, on the theme of stabilizing the country.

A spokesman of the Dutch foreign affairs ministry on Wednesday could not confirm yet whether or not Iran had been invited to the summit.

Oslo  - Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon Wednesday said he believed the United Nations Millennium Development Goals can be achieved, while warning of the huge gaps between rich and poor.

In a speech at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen, western Norway, the crown prince said that "most people in the world earn less than five dollars a day."

Vienna - Bolivian President Evo Morales on Wednesday chewed a coca leaf at a United Nations drug conference in Vienna, underscoring his view that the plant should not be on the UN list of narcotic substances.

Morales was speaking at a conference of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which is expected to adopt an action plan Thursday to tackle the global drug problem in the coming decade, against the backdrop of limited progress over the last 10 years.

New York - Iran supplied arms to Syria in violation of a UN Security Council resolution banning arms transfer as part of measures against Iran's nuclear activities, the United States and Britain said Tuesday.

Details of the arms transfer to Syria were not made public, but the US and British ambassadors called for efforts to stop weapons deals between Tehran and Damascus.

US Ambassador Susan Rice said the 15-nation council should take action to end Iran's weapons procurement to Syria.

New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday Haiti can break the impasse created by natural disasters and poverty, but it must act because international assistance is time bound.

Ban said in capital Port-au-Prince before leaving for Washington that the UN mission in that country and the United States' relief programme, known as US HOPE II Act, are not indefinite.