The United Nations Environment Programme released today a new report that says environmental degradation and pollution are estimated to cause up to 234 times as many premature deaths as occur in conflicts annually.  Environmental impacts are also responsible for the deaths of over a quarter of children under five, it says.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on Africa Day, observed on 25 May:

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson’s opening remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the Special Session on Migrants and Humanitarian Action, in Istanbul today:

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson’s opening remarks, as prepared for delivery, to the High-Level Leaders’ Round Table “Leave No One Behind: A Commitment to Address Forced Displacement”, in Istanbul today:

On 18 May 2016, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 2127 (2013) concerning the Central African Republic received updates on the situation in the Central African Republic from representatives of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, and the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. 

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, to the high-level round table on humanitarian financing at the World Humanitarian Summit, in Istanbul today:

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson’s opening remarks, as prepared for delivery, to the High-Level Leaders’ Round Table “Changing People’s Lives:  From Delivering Aid to Ending Need”, in Istanbul today:

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to the High-Level Leaders’ Round Table “Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflict”, at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul today:

United Nations Security Council resolution 1540 (2004) is a key instrument in global efforts to prevent non-State actors, in particular terrorists, from threatening society with weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical or biological.  The resolution does this by requiring States to adopt laws with penalties that make such actions criminal, whether undertaken directly or by financing or assisting them; and by requiring States to implement wide-ranging domestic controls designed to keep weapons of mass destruction or the means to produce them out of the hands of non-State actors.