New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon ordered Tuesday an accelerated reconfiguration of the organization's mission in Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia earlier this year and is now recognized by more than 40 countries.

The UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has ceased to carry out most of its tasks after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, Ban said in a report to the UN Security Council, which planned to meet Wednesday to discuss the new development.

New York  - The continued fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants has become the "biggest challenge" to the political talks aimed at resolving the conflict, the United Nations said Tuesday.

"Recent developments in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel underscores that the gap between the political tracks and the situation on the ground remain large, posing considerable obstacles in the path that lies ahead," UN Undersecretary General for Political Affairs B Lynn Pascoe said.

Geneva  - About 75 million children globally, over half of them girls, do not receive education, including one third of primary school age children in sub-Saharan Africa, the UN's education, science and culture agency said Tuesday.

The lack of education and inequalities in schooling systems caused poverty and diminished opportunity, according to UNESCO's Global Monitoring Report which said governments had to take action to make improvements.

In general, children from poor countries are three times less likely to attend primary school than children from rich nations, and the education they do receive will probably be of lower quality.

Vienna - The international Association of Space Explorers (ASE) on Tuesday called on the United Nations to develop strategies against asteroids threatening to hit earth, in a report presented at the United Nations in Vienna.

Among the known 5,600 so-called near-earth objects, and the 500,000 additional ones expected to be discovered in the next 15 years, "several dozen will pose an uncomfortably high risk of striking Earth and inflicting local or regional devastation," the astronauts said in their report.

New York  - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday condemned the killing of a journalist working for a UN radio station in the Democratic Republic of Congo - the second such incident within the past year.

Ban said he learned with "deep distress" of the murder in Bukavu Friday of Didace Namujimbo, a journalist from Radio Okapi, the station of the UN mission in Congo, which is managed in partnership with Fondation Hirondelle.

"This crime is all the more devastating as it marks the second time in less than two years that a member of Radio Okapi's staff has been brutally killed in the same city," Ban said in a statement.

New York  - The Palestinian people's rights to self- determination and statehood should be supported after 60 years of deprivation, United Nations officials said Monday.

While the UN advocates for Palestinians' rights, it also defends Israeli's rights to live in security within their borders.

The UN on Monday marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, an occasion to reiterate calls for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Negotiators at last year's meetings in Annapolis, under the sponsorship of the White House, had hoped for a peace agreement by the end of December.