UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday met with regional groups of UN member states to discuss his agenda for reforms.

The UN chief met with African and Asian countries to discuss the report of the 16-member High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.

He also met with the group of Western European and other states to push ahead with the UN reform agenda.

The meetings came five days after Annan told the UN General Assembly that the coming year was critical for the world body to make the necessary reforms to deal effectively with a new globalization of threats, from HIV/AIDS, nuclear proliferation and genocide to terrorism capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people.

The high-level panel was drafted by prominent politicians, diplomats and development experts Annan appointed a year ago to assess threats facing the world and recommend policy and institutional changes to deal with them.

The panel's report came out with 101 proposals for dealing with the six areas identified as being the greatest threats to worldwide security in the 21st century: continued poverty and environmental degradation, terrorism, civil war, conflict between states, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and organized crime.

Source: Xinhua