Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s statement, as delivered by Edmond Mulet, Chef de Cabinet, at the opening of the ninth session of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in New York today:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on International Widows’ Day, observed on 23 June:

Concluding its second resumed session, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today sent 25 draft resolutions and one decision to the General Assembly, asking the world body to authorize the allocation of $7.86 billion to finance 15 peacekeeping missions for the year beginning 1 July 2016.

Opening its 2016 substantive session today, the Special Committee on decolonization, approved without a vote two draft resolutions on the dissemination of information with Non-Self-Governing Territories, and then commenced targeted discussions on the question of Gibraltar.

By secret ballot, the General Assembly today elected by a margin of four votes Peter Thomson of Fiji as President of its seventy-first session, also selecting, in consecutive meetings, Bureaux members of its six Main Committees.

The following Security Council statement was issued today by Council President François Delattre (France):

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the meeting with the pilots of the Solar Impulse, in New York today:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, observed on 15 June:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the third annual East Stockholm Food Forum, held in Stockholm from 13 to 14 June:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message, delivered by Kim Won-soo, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Ministerial Meeting, in Vienna today: