New York  - France urged the UN Security Council on Thursday to enforce international humanitarian law, which it said was being violated by parties in the Gaza Strip conflict.

France, which holds the 15-nation council's presidency for January, said in a concept paper that the UN cannot continue to ignore humanitarian violations.

"We cannot let this trend go on," said the paper, which council members debated behind closed doors with the participation of major UN relief organizations.

Havana  - Cuba plans to tender an official invitation next week to the UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Novak, to visit the island this year, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said Wednesday.

This move and others come in the context of the communist country's increased cooperation with global human rights organs.

Cuba is also set to ratify "in the coming days" the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Forced Disappearance, Perez Roque said at a press conference in Havana.

New York  - The United Nations Security Council was urged Tuesday to take on the burden of solving the conflict in the Gaza Strip to make way for reconstruction and relief efforts.

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which cares for millions of uprooted Palestinians, told the council that the challenges it faces go beyond the humanitarian realm.

"They lie in the province of political action," Karen AbuZayd said. "For this reason, it is on this council and its esteemed members that part of the burden of restoring normalcy to Gaza rests."

New York  - The United Nations on Tuesday welcomed US President Barack Obama's decision to lift a ban on funding for international family planning groups that perform abortions and related counselling services.

Thoraya Obaid, director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) praised Obama's decision, which reversed years of policies held by Republican governments, starting with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and pursued by George W Bush in the past eight years.

New York  - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday condemned the fighting between rebels and Sudanese government troops in El Fasher in the northern province of Darfur.

The fighting took place Monday on the outskirt of El Fasher, where the UN and African Union maintains the headquarters of its peacekeeping operation in troubled Darfur.

This follows clashes earlier this month in south Darfur involving the Sudanese Armed Forces, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army/Minni Minawi, the UN said.

New York  - The new US administration under President Barack Obama pledged Monday to work with the United Nations, which newly appointed US Ambassador Susan Rice described as a "vitally important institution" with great potential.

Rice presented her credentials to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at UN headquarters in New York on her first day at work and spent 45 minutes in discussions with Ban on a range of topics from climate change to the crisis in the Middle East.