Oscar Arias Sanchez, president of the unarmed state of Costa Rica, called on Wednesday for a global reduction of military spending as a matter of international security.

The Security Council later adopted a non-binding resolution inviting other countries to follow this path.

Oscar Arias Sanchez, president of the unarmed state of Costa Rica, called on Wednesday for a global reduction of military spending as a matter of international security.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned on Wednesday a surge of piracy off Somalia`s coast and backed international efforts to combat it.

Ban `expresses his concern` at the pirates` attacks in recent days and `reiterates his condemnation of all acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea wherever they occur,` said the UN chief`s spokesperson in a statement.

The UN`s top official probing torture believes that the practice is `systematic` in Equatorial Guinea, following a 10-day trip to the west African nation.

Austrian diplomat Manfred Nowak completed an inspection visit on Tuesday, slamming President Teodoro Obiang Nguema`s near 30-year regime in a document entitled `preliminary findings` obtained by AFP in Malabo.

The United Nations on Wednesday launched its largest ever aid appeal, saying it will need seven billion dollars (5.5 billion euros) to help 30 million people in 31 countries during 2009.

UN troops opened fire Wednesday on pro-government Congo militia who attacked them in the east of the strife-torn African country, the UN mission said.

Militia fighters fired on two UN armoured vehicles, said Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, spokesman for the UN Mission in DR Congo (MONUC). The militia, however, accused the peackeepers of shooting first.

The UN food agency said Wednesday it would need 42.6 million dollars (33.6 million euros) to carry out reforms called for by an independent review.

About half the funds will be spent next year, focussing on measures to improve `systems, programme, culture and organisational restructuring,` Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) budget director Manoj Juneja told AFP.

US President George W. Bush is sending the head of the US Agency for International Development, Henrietta Fore, to a November 28 UN summit on the economic crisis and is unlikely to attend himself, the White House said Wednesday.

`The president is not expected to travel to Doha for the conference next weekend,` said spokesman Tony Fratto.

Israel will stay away from an international anti-racism conference next year, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Wednesday, saying the meeting was certain to become `an anti-Israel tribunal.`

A former United Nations official convicted by a US court of money-laundering in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal has been transferred to his native Russia, the Russian foreign ministry said Wednesday.