Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to the Brazilian Haiti Peacekeeping Commemoration, as prepared for delivery, in Rio de Janeiro, today, 27 May:

Approaching the end of its four-week second resumed session, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today took up the proposed budget for the United Nations Office to the African Union, estimated to require $10.6 million, with speakers expressing regret at its late submission by the Secretary-General, leaving barely a day to consider possible gaps, as described by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions.

Amid high stakes and intense negotiations to bring the 2010 Review Conference for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to a successful conclusion, delegations of States parties to the landmark 1968 accord began pouring over the details of a draft final document distributed early this evening, with a view to adopting it by consensus on 28 May, the last day of the Conference.

Recommending special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council for two groups today, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations also postponed consideration of 62 other applications pending receipt of additional information.

The eighth annual International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers will be observed on 29 May — a particularly sombre occasion due to the heavy loss of life of peacekeepers in Haiti and elsewhere earlier this year. Since 29 May falls on Saturday this year, commemorative activities at United Nations Headquarters and many other United Nations offices around the world will be held on Friday, 28 May.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for World Environment Day, observed 5 June:

Extending the mandate of the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) until 30 June 2010 today, the Security Council also decided that from 1 July it would bear the title “United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO)”, in view of the new phase reached in the country.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the forty-fifth annual meeting of the African Development Bank and thirty-sixth meeting of the African Development Fund, delivered by Abdoulie Janneh, Executive Secretary, Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in Abidjan, 27 May:

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to the third Forum of the Alliance of Civilizations, in Rio de Janeiro, today, 28 May:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the International Disaster and Risk Conference, to be held in Davos on 30 May: