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

An art exhibit, CO2 CUBES: Visualize a Tonne of Change, will be unveiled to the public on site at Copenhagen, at the Tycho Brahe Planetarium, for the launch of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP-15), from 7 to 18 December.

As the United Nations observed the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern that talks between Israel’s Prime Minister and the Palestinian President on a two-State solution had been suspended for almost a year.

Nearly a year after Israel’s military offensive into the Gaza Strip which left some 1,400 Palestinians dead and pushed an already desperate humanitarian situation into crisis, the question of Palestine was at a critical juncture, and sustained focus was needed to both revive stagnant peace talks and create conditions for broader peace in the Middle East, General Assembly delegates said today, as they launched their annual debate of those and related issues.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, observed 3 December:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on International Volunteer Day, observed 5 December:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for World AIDS Day, observed 1 December:

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the seventeenth Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Ministerial Council Meeting, in Athens, on 1 December, as delivered by Ján Kubiš, Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe:

Following are Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro’s remarks to the South-South Cooperation Conference in Nairobi, 1 December:

Following is the text of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s video message on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty, in Washington, D.C., today, 1 December, as recorded 24 November: