The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today took up the Secretariat’s request for an assessment of $652.5 million to finance the ongoing operations of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). This assessment would make up the second portion of the $1.36 billion, approved by the General Assembly with its 24 June resolution 64/275, for the Mission’s operation from 1 July 2010 to the end of next June.

Recommending a continuing but smaller United Nations presence in Burundi to the Security Council this morning, the Secretary-General’s Executive Representative said the country’s transformation to stability and democracy was progressing but remained fragile and reversible.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for International Migrants Day, to be observed on 18 December:

Following are Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro’s remarks to the seventh meeting of the Global Compact Working Group on the Tenth Principle against Corruption in New York, 9 December:

Saudi Arabia will host a “Workshop on Security Council resolution 1540 (2004) concerning preventing terrorists from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction” in Riyadh on 11-12 December.

Calling for more attention to health as an important policy issue on the international agenda, especially in meeting the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, the General Assembly today recognized that challenges in global health demanded persistent attention, urged States to consider health in the formulation of foreign policy and requested the Secretary-General and World Director-General to submit a report to the next session on “improving the effectiveness of governance for global health”.

Although the International Criminal Court had issued warrants and other decisions on serious crimes committed in Sudan’s Darfur region, it was now up to that country’s Government and, ultimately, the Security Council to ensure the implementation of those decisions, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Court’s Chief Prosecutor, told Council members today.

The following statement by the Chairman of the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict was issued in New York, 9 December:

The United Nations has signed an agreement with the Republic of Korea to establish a new research and training facility on sustainable development.