Bonn, Germany  - Government ministers from around the world Tuesday began a three-day conference designed to lay the groundwork for improving access to education around the world.

One of the goals of the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development is to help the 75 million children around the globe who have no access to schooling.

The goal was set in a programme called the UN Decade, which was established five years ago. The conference in the former West German capital of Bonn is reviewing progress made so far and looking at the future.

New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon sounded an optimistic note for Haiti, saying its future looks better than any emerging markets thanks to US trade legislation approved by Washington last year.

"Haiti stands a better chance than almost any emerging economy, not only to weather the current economic storms, but to prosper," Ban said in an opinion piece to be published in the New York Times on Tuesday.

The Hague  - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Afghan President Hamid Karzai were on Monday due to arrive in the Netherlands ahead of an international conference Tuesday to discuss the future of war-torn Afghanistan.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was due to welcome the two at a special reception in The Hague. He was also scheduled to hold talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton before delivering his opening speech at the conference on Tuesday.

New York  - A United Nations panel of economists Friday proposed a new global currency reserve that would take over the US dollar-based system used for decades by international banks.

The proposal came on the heels of the controversial call by China's Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan to create a new world currency reserve to replace the US dollar as part of a sweeping overhaul of global finance, which is suffering its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

New York - The United Nations' role in Afghanistan is expected to increase in order to meet the new strategy launched by US President Barack Obama on Friday to deal with terrorism and the al-Qaeda network in that country, a senior US official said.

The official, who briefed some UN-based correspondents Friday on the new US Afghan strategy on background only, said the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) will assume a "very important role the stabilization and development."

"UNAMA will have a critical role," the official said.

New York  - Khartoum's expulsion of major international humanitarian groups from Darfur has caused serious deficiencies in healthcare services and shelter for hundreds of thousands of people in the region, the top UN humanitarian coordinator said Thursday.