Free trade, increased investment, debt relief and efficient governance should lead the global response to development challenges, the representative of Saint Lucia said today as the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) took up macroeconomic policy.

Tackling seemingly intractable disarmament and non-proliferation problems with “virtually moribund” disarmament machinery signalled an urgent need to “breathe new life” into attempts to remove the roadblocks, said delegates today in the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), concluding the general debate segment of the session.

Child deaths had fallen dramatically from 12 million a year in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011, but 18,000 children were still dying every day, the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today, urging States to design policies and programmes targeted at “hard-to-reach” populations, such as children in armed conflict.

On 16 October 2013, the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999) and 1989 (2011) approved the amendments specified with underline in the entry below on 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 2083 (2012) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations:

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s video message to the Global Electoral Organizations (GEO) conference and inauguration of the Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB), in Seoul on 17 October:

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s video message to the Seoul Conference on Cyberspace, in Seoul on 17 October:

While acknowledging the overall financial health of the United Nations, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) voiced their worries today about the unpaid assessments that produce a cash flow shortage in the Organization’s regular budget each December.

New media technologies were not just instruments of communication, but “channels of citizen participation”, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) heard today, as it continued its consideration of questions relating to information, including in the context of how the United Nations Department of Public Information was measuring up to the challenges.

It was time to place a value on unpaid work carried out by women, the head of UN-Women stressed today as the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) considered poverty eradication.