The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that, one month after Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in the Philippines, humanitarian needs remain enormous, with nearly 15 million people affected, including some 4 million people displaced and more than 1 million homes destroyed or damaged. The UN and its partners are focusing on reaching the most vulnerable.

Human Rights Day this year marks the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. In his message for the Day, the Secretary-General said that promoting human rights is one of the core purposes of the United Nations and the key to success is the political will of Member States.

Being gay was punishable by death in six countries, former tennis star Martina Navratilova said today — Human Rights Day — at a Headquarters press conference on the fight against homophobia through sport.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, James Rawley, expressed concern over the Israeli authorities’ demolition of 30 Palestinian-owned structures in the Jordan Valley yesterday, resulting in the displacement of 41 people, including 24 children. He said the demolitions must be brought to an immediate halt.

The births of nearly 230 million children under the age of five years, about one third of that category worldwide, had never been registered, a senior official of the United Nations Children’s Fund said today.

The Secretary-General briefed the Security Council on his visit to Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad last month. He said he came back with a clear sense that much more needed to be done to fight poverty, empower women, provide employment opportunities for young people and ensure that all have what they need to build a better future.

While malaria mortality rates had declined by 45 per cent globally and 49 per cent in Africa between 2000 and 2012, funding was still far short of the need to fully scale up life-saving interventions, a senior World Health Organization official said at Headquarters today.

United Nations peacekeeping operations had made significant headway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mali this year, a senior official overseeing those missions told reporters at a Headquarters press conference today.

Concerning the final report of the UN Mission to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria, the Secretary-General noted with deep concern that the team substantiated reports that chemical weapons were used on numerous occasions at multiple sites, including on a small scale against both civilians and military targets.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the fact-finding mission in Syria had achieved 8.7, the chief of the mission charged with verifying the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria said at a Headquarters press conference today.