At its fifty-fourth meeting, on 8 May 2015, the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict agreed, in connection with the examination of the first report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in South Sudan (S/2014/884), to address the following message to all parties to the armed conflict in South Sudan, in particular the SPLA, the SPLA-IO and armed groups operating in their support such as the White Army, through a public statement by the Chair of the Working Group:

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Mbaranga Gasarabwe of Rwanda as his Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), where she will also serve as United Nations Resident Coordinator, Humanitarian Coordinator and Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointment of Mourad Wahba of Egypt as his Deputy Special Representative for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), where he will also serve as United Nations Resident Coordinator, Humanitarian Coordinator and Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today began its consideration of the additional $80 million required for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) for the year ending 30 June 2015.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Madam Ban Soon-taek arrived in Paris from Rome on Tuesday afternoon, 28 April.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, accompanied by Madam Ban Soon-taek, departed New York on Sunday, 26 April.  They arrived in Rome at midday the following day.

Insufficient progress in combating the illegal drug trade called for a new global approach that moved beyond a heavy focus on prohibition and addressed consumption from a holistic public health perspective that placed individual human rights and well-being at its core, speakers said today in a General Assembly high-level debate devoted to the issue.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the high-level panel on the commemoration of the end of the Second World War, in Gdansk, Poland, today:

At the initiative of Poland’s President, the Secretary-General, in Gdansk today, took part in a trilateral meeting with the President of Ukraine, during which he encouraged the parties to the continuing conflict in Ukraine to swiftly and fully carry out the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk agreements.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on the International Day of Families, observed on 15 May: