The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Director-General Irina Bokova of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization have appointed 14 new members to the governing Council of United Nations University.

The question of the United Nations being able to effectively tackle entrenched global ills — from poverty and terrorism to conflict prevention and pandemic disease — hinged on whether the 192-member body would be brave enough to move beyond deadlock and oft-repeated positions of principle to truly defend its role as the premier centre for global decision-making, the President of the General Assembly stressed today at the end of that body’s week-long general debate.

A number of key events in Afghanistan, including the Consultative Peace Jirga, the 20 July international Kabul Conference and the holding of parliamentary elections on 18 September, were stepping stones towards the full exercise of that country’s sovereign authority, the top United Nations official in Afghanistan told the Security Council today.

In a brief organizational meeting today, the Fourth Committee approved its work programme for the current session, during which it planned to consider more than a dozen topics, ranging from the peaceful uses of outer space to the to a review of peacekeeping operations and the decolonization of the remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories.

On 29 September 2010, the Committee approved the changes specified with strikethrough and underline in the entry below to its Consolidated List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo set out in paragraph 1 of Security Council resolution 1904 (2009) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for the International Day of Non-Violence, to be delivered by his Chef de Cabinet, Vijay Nambiar, tomorrow, 1 October, ahead of the observance on 2 October:

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

The 2010 Disarmament Fellowship Programme will commence its third and final segment at United Nations Headquarters, today, in New York.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Magnum Photos will open an exhibition to the public on Tuesday, 5 October, entitled “Access to Life”. Through photography, multimedia pieces and text, the project chronicles the transformative effect that access to free antiretroviral drug treatments is having on AIDS patients around the world.

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