United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Michael Keating of the United Kingdom as his Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan. Mr. Keating will also serve as Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator.

Two conflicts, two peace operations and two particular ways to photograph the communities they serve. A joint photographic exhibition titled On the Ground: UN Peace Operations in Afghanistan and Darfur opens at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, 6 July in the Main Gallery of the Visitors’ Lobby.

Acting on the request of the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Security Council decided this morning that, notwithstanding the relevant articles of the court’s Statute, ad litem judges may be eligible to stand for, and vote in, elections for its presidency.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for World Population Day, to be observed on 11 July:

On 28 June 2011, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1572 (2004) concerning Côte d’Ivoire adopted revised Guidelines for the conduct of its work.

The General Assembly this afternoon elected Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations, as President of its sixty-sixth session.

With Afghanistan set for a mid-July launch of its two-year transition process — covering security, governance and efforts to bring opposition groups into the political mainstream — the top United Nations official in that country told the Security Council today that the “train was on track and moving forward”, but to be successful, it must be underpinned by the socio-economic development that the Afghan people so desperately needed and deserved.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to the Economic and Social Council to launch the 2011 Millennium Development Goals Report in Geneva today, 7 July:

At the intersection of critical conflict zones and impacted by insecurity in neighbouring Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic was at a crossroads, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in that country told the Security Council today.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to civil society on food security and sustainable development, in Madrid today, 6 July: