Reuters - The U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee condemned Iran on Friday for a violent crackdown on protesters after presidential elections this year that the Iranian opposition says were rigged.

AP - EDITOR'S NOTE — The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child 20 years ago Friday, yet hundreds of millions of children still suffer from violence, hunger and disease. Associated Press correspondents around the globe interviewed children who illustrate the remaining challenges, along with some victories.

AP - A key U.N. committee expressed "very serious concern" Thursday at widespread reports of torture and other grave human rights violations in North Korea and strongly urged the government to put an end to the violations.

AP - Four years after cartoons of the prophet Muhammad set off violent protests across the Muslim world, Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery — essentially a ban on blasphemy that would put them on a collision course with free speech laws in the West.

AP - UNICEF urged the world to help the 1 billion children still deprived of food, shelter, clean water or health care — and the hundreds of millions more threatened by violence — two decades after the U.N. adopted a treaty guaranteeing children's rights.

AP - The U.N. climate chief has a message for naysayers about the Copenhagen climate conference next month: It will succeed.

AFP - The United Nations on Thursday stepped up pressure on Sri Lanka to free thousands of war-displaced civilians held in state-run internment camps.

AP - The United States is calling for intensified efforts to combat piracy and warning against paying ransom.

AP - The families of three American hikers detained in Iran have filed a petition with the Iranian mission to the United Nations.

AP - The director of a U.N. food agency questioned Wednesday how world powers could commit so much money to fighting the financial crisis and not to feeding the 1 billion hungry.

AFP - More than a quarter of a million people have fled Pakistan's latest military offensive against Taliban insurgents in the tribal South Waziristan region, the United Nations said Wednesday.

AFP - The United Nations on Wednesday nearly doubled its appeal for funds to help the Philippines cope with the effects of back-to-back storms that left over 1,100 people dead and 1.7 million homeless.

AFP - A UN commission investigating the assassination of Pakistan's ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto has questioned former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, the United Nations said Wednesday.

AP - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, blamed for plunging his people into starvation, used his platform as Tuesday's opening speaker at the U.N. anti-hunger summit to decry what he called his neocolonialist foes.