Amid a sharp spike in violence between Israelis and Palestinians — including the “alarming escalation” over the weekend of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into Israeli civilian areas and the ensuing Israel air strikes that left three Palestinians dead — a senior United Nations political official today told the Security Council that the international community must make a “decisive” effort to ease tensions and bring the parties back to the negotiating table.

While welcoming Mongolia’s efforts to bring its national legislation into line with its obligations under international treaties, members of the Human Rights Committee expressed considerable concern today that an absence of judicial independence jeopardized broader protections by eroding public faith in the most fundamental mechanisms of justice.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks — “Listening to the People: A Changing Arab World and the United Nations” — today at the El Sawy Culture Wheel Centre, Cairo:

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

The incoming Chair of the Committee established to monitor sanctions on Iran related to its nuclear programme reported two new cases of alleged violations of those sanctions as he gave his first 90-day report to the Security Council this afternoon, the seventeenth such report since the Committee’s establishment.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to civil society in Tunis, 22 March:

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for World Tuberculosis Day, 24 March:

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations Latin American and Caribbean Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace on 29 and 30 March in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, to be observed in New York on 25 March:

While they praised the overall efforts of Peacebuilding Commission to meet its mandated objectives as a platform for galvanizing action and aligning long-term support for post-conflict countries, members of the Security Council today acknowledged the 5-year-old body’s growing pains, as it endeavoured to meet the extremely high expectations placed on it, increase its visibility in the field and strengthen interaction with other actors in and outside the United Nations.