UN aims for kinder sanctions

The United Nations Security Council says it will set up a special group to recommend ways of making sanctions more effective and less harmful to civilians.

The French ambassador Jean-David Levitte said UN sanctions against Iraq had achieved most of their goals -- but that the human cost far outweighed the benefits.

Speaking earlier, the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, said that the mixed success of sanctions had raised serious concerns about their effectiveness and unintended humanitarian impact. Correspondents say the Security Council's move is an attempt to answer mounting criticism that UN sanctions have often gone ignored or have hurt a country's people rather than the leaders they are intended to punish.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service