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.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Sunaina Lowe of Jamaica as Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Jakarta, an office that provides service to Indonesia.  She assumes her duties on 23 May.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s opening remarks at the World Humanitarian Summit, in Istanbul today:

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the Doha Forum, in Doha today:

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

ISTANBUL, 23 May - The first-ever World Humanitarian Summit opened today in Istanbul with more than 65 Heads of State and Government, and numerous public- and private-sector stakeholders gathered for two days of high-level discussions on ways to rapidly advance global efforts to address the record numbers of people suffering from conflict, climate disasters and hunger.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at the commemoration of the International Day of Vesak, in New York today:

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointments of Mary Robinson of Ireland and Macharia Kamau of Kenya as his Special Envoys on El Niño and Climate.