Meetings Coverage

The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) for one year to 31 January 2027.

As the Security Council gathered the day after the body of the last Israeli hostage in Gaza was retrieved, a United Nations Middle East peace expert stressed the need to consolidate the tenuous ceasefire, while also raising alarm about the escalation of violence and settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“Raw power” is testing the resilience of multilateralism, the UN’s Deputy Chief warned the Economic and Social Council today, urging Member States to “double down and deliver” concrete action to unlock financing for development, ease debt burdens and accelerate progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Amid mounting global tumult, meeting sustainable development targets will only be possible if Governments, civil society and the private sector share both tools and resources in defence of the world’s most vulnerable, officials told the Economic and Social Council’s annual Partnership Forum today.

The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) for a final two-month period — until 31 March 2026 — during which the Mission will draw down and end the permanent United Nations presence in Hudaydah.

The rule of law is being replaced by “the law of the jungle” around the world, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned the Security Council today, citing a brazen disregard for international law that has helped humanity avoid a third world war for the past 80 years.

As the 2016 peace agreement in Colombia reaches the tenth year of its 15-year timeline, the Head of the UN Mission in that country called on its Government to continue to protect former combatants who have laid down arms, accelerate rural land reform and prepare for milestone elections in 2026.

The situation in Syria remains “very tense with exchanges of fire”, a senior United Nations political and peacebuilding official said today as he briefed the Security Council on progress in halting the fighting and ensuring the full integration of all three north-east governorates under central Government control.

While the new year carries “high expectations” for progress in Haiti, the Security Council heard today that achieving this requires sustained security efforts, focused international engagement and assumed political responsibilities.

The gruesome crisis in Sudan has “darkened even further” in the last six months, the Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said today, citing a pattern of large-scale crimes against humanity that is being repeated “in town after town” across the country’s Darfur region.