United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Kate Gilmore of Australia as Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights.  She will succeed Flavia Pansieri of Italy, to whom the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights are grateful for her dedicated service to the United Nations human rights programme during the past three years, following a long and distinguished career in the United Nations system around the world.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, observed on 2 December:

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew on Thursday, 26 November, from New York to Valletta, Malta, for a special session on climate change of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

Following are UN Secretary General’s remarks as prepared for delivery at the twenty-first Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) high-level meeting on Africa and climate change, in Paris today:

Gains made in the areas of human rights and development contrasted sharply with the volatile and deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, the General Assembly heard today from three dozen speakers as the 193-member body took up the situation in that country.

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Matthew Rycroft (United Kingdom):

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

On 30 November 2015, the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999) and 1989 (2011) approved the addition of the entry specified below to its Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo set out in paragraph 1 of Security Council resolution 2161 (2014) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations:

This morning in Paris, the Secretary-General told leaders gathered for the twenty-first Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference that they were here to write the script for a new future.  He added that a political moment like this may not come again.

Following are UN Secretary-General’s remarks at the launch of the International Solar Alliance, in Paris today: