New York - The World Health Organization on Thursday praised a decision to completely ban smoking and sale of cigarettes inside UN headquarters in New York as well as in other cities.

A smoking ban had been in place, but government delegates attending UN meetings at headquarters in New York, Geneva and Vienna, the three major UN buildings, usually ignore the ban, citing their rights as government officials.

New York - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged warring parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo to end hostilities, as he prepared to meet with African Union leaders to discuss the situation there.

The fighting in eastern Congo between government troops and a mixed militia group of the Coalition of Patriots in the Congolese Resistance (PARECO)/Mayi-Mayi and the National Congress in Defence of the People (CNDP) in the Rutshuru area marred a ceasefire agreement from August.

Nairobi - A regional summit on the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is to take place in Nairobi Friday, a Kenyan foreign ministry official said Wednesday, as renewed fighting continued for a second day.

"There will be a summit on Friday," Patrick Wamoto, head of the Kenyan Foreign Ministry's African and African Union Directorate, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "The agenda is DR Congo."

New York - The United Nations Security Council is likely to meet over the possibility of having a larger peacekeeping force in Democratic Republic of Congo at the end of November despite the current tense situation in the country.

Nairobi, Goma  - A United Nations aid convoy taking supplies behind rebel lines in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is not enough to meet the needs of desperate refugees, aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of civilians remain displaced after rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's forces routed the Congolese army and came within reach of taking the city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, last week.

New York - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday he was ready to meet with the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to bring an end to the fighting that has created a fresh humanitarian crisis in Congo's provinces.

Ban said he would visit Africa either this week or next week if Congolese President Joseph Kabila and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame were to agree on a meeting somewhere in that continent.

Ban, who had spoken to both leaders, said Kagame and Kabila have begun a dialogue along with their separate teams.