UNITED NATIONS/ABIDJAN (Reuters) – World powers voted on Monday to keep U.N. forces in Ivory Coast, defying incumbent Laurent Gbagbo’s demand they leave, and the U.N. peacekeeping chief said the troops would shoot back if fired on.

Gbagbo faces growing international pressure after European Union countries agreed to impose a travel ban on him and his entourage for failing to step down after a November 28 election the outside world says he lost.

UNITED NATIONS/ABIDJAN (Reuters) – World powers agreed on Monday to keep 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Ivory Coast after a disputed presidential poll, openly defying incumbent Laurent Gbagbo’s demand that they quit the country.

Gbagbo faces growing international pressure after European Union countries agreed to impose a travel ban on him and his entourage for failing to step down after a November 28 election the outside world says he lost.

MANHASSET, New York (Reuters) – Morocco and Western Sahara’s independence movement agreed on Saturday to speed up talks next year on the disputed territory but remained at odds over its future status, a U.N. mediator said.

Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony in northwest Africa, was annexed by Morocco in 1975, sparking a rebellion by the Polisario Front. The United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1991, but no political settlement has followed.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States vowed on Friday to seek to restore to a U.N. General Assembly resolution against unjustified executions a reference to killings due to sexual orientation, cut out by Arab and African states.

The assembly passes a resolution condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions and other killings every two years. The 2008 declaration included an explicit reference to killings committed because of the victims’ sexual preferences.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – It was 1975 and that year’s Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to Andrei Sakharov, the Russian physicist-turned-human-rights-champion.

Sakharov had played a major role in the 1950s in developing the Soviet hydrogen bomb, but by this time he had long been out of military work and antagonized the authorities with his outspoken pro-democracy views.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – It was 1975 and that year’s Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to Andrei Sakharov, the Russian physicist-turned-human-rights-champion.

Sakharov had played a major role in the 1950s in developing the Soviet hydrogen bomb, but by this time he had long been out of military work and antagonized the authorities with his outspoken pro-democracy views.

ABIDJAN/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday backed Alassane Ouattara as the winner of Ivory Coast’s disputed November 28 presidential election, strengthening his challenge to incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.

The West African nation’s electoral commission had given victory to Ouattara by nearly 10 points. But the Constitutional Council, headed by a Gbagbo ally, overturned that result charging fraud in some areas, and declared Gbagbo winner.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Russia Tuesday blocked a U.N. Security Council statement that would recognize challenger Alassane Ouattara as the winner of Ivory Coast’s disputed presidential election, diplomats said.

After five and a half hours of closed-door discussions, the council adjourned for the day with Russian envoys saying they needed further instructions from Moscow, the diplomats said.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A U.N. prosecutor demanded on Monday that Serbia take a “more proactive approach” to arrest two remaining war crimes fugitives from the Balkan wars — a key condition for Belgrade’s eventual EU membership.

Stepping up pressure on the former Yugoslav state, Serge Brammertz told the U.N. Security Council that Serbia’s failure to arrest Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic “is one of our foremost concerns.”

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The world’s recovery from the 2008 financial crisis is losing steam, with growth, hit by austerity drives in rich countries, not enough to restore the 30 million lost jobs in the next two years, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

“The road to recovery from the Great Recession is proving to be long, winding and rocky,” said an annual U.N. survey, “World Economic Situation and Prospects 2011.”