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As winter closes in on Greece, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today that improving living conditions for asylum-seekers and migrants is the ‘number one priority’ for humanitarian actors in the country and urged the European Union to speed up its relocation efforts.

Marking the second International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime, United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon today urged Member States to honour those victims by “working even harder against expressions of hatred, intolerance, racism and xenophobia.”

Amid soaring malnutrition and collapsing basic services in Yemen, a staggering 18.8 million people need humanitarian assistance, the United Nations relief wing has reported as it allocated $58 million through the Humanitarian Pooled Fund to bolster life-saving activities across the crisis-gripped country.

Expressing “outrage” at the escalation of violence in Syria, particularly war-battered Aleppo, the General Assembly – the universal body comprising all 193 United Nations Members States – today adopted a resolution demanding an immediate and complete end to all attacks on civilians as well as an end to all sieges in war-ravaged country.

A new report by INTERPOL and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) links environmental crimes with other serious illegal activity, including corruption, counterfeiting, drug trafficking, cybercrime, and financial crimes as well as with terrorist organizations and non-State armed groups.

As the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of its work for the world's most vulnerable children, the agency today issued a stark warning that despite significant progress, too many children are still being left behind, with nearly 535 million of them living in harsh conditions, lacking access to decent health, education and protection services.

No country is immune, and every country bears a responsibility to end corruption, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, warning that corruption is a “broad barrier” in the path to world's achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has congratulated the people of Ghana for exercising their democratic rights and peacefully conducting the presidential and parliamentary elections on 7 December.

Following are brief summaries of some of today’s news stories from around the UN system. Click on the links provided for more detailed coverage.

Governments must abide by the existing laws that protect indigenous and local communities who are stewards of key natural resources from which all humankind benefits, a United Nations human rights expert told the UN Conference on Biological Diversity today.