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Briefing the Security Council today, senior United Nations officials underlined the significant challenges and deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Lake Chad Basin region, including in particular those posed by the militant group, Boko Haram, and urged for sustained support to national and regional security, political and humanitarian action.

Highlighting that the Colombian peace process faced and continues to face a range of challenges but also offers “solid” opportunities, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the country today called on the United Nations Security Council for its continued attention and strong support to the country.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, reported today on the conditions in Mosul, a city witnessing one of the largest urban military operations since the Second World War, warning that a proper humanitarian response, conditions that created the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) could remain.

The United Nations expressed concern today about fighting in the Wadi Barada area of west Damascus, which in addition to displacing thousands of people, has also restricted water supplies to some 5.5 million people in and around the Syrian capital.

Global economic growth is forecast to accelerate moderately to 2.7 per cent in 2017 after a post-crisis low last year, the World Bank said in a report released today.

As the United Nations-facilitated talks on Cyprus went into their third day in Geneva ahead of an international conference tomorrow, the UN adviser on the issue has said the discussions are “on track” and while there is still much hard work to do, an “historic” outcome could be reached as part of ongoing reunification efforts.

Addressing the Security Council, the head of United Nations peacekeeping operations today urged the international community to push for a swift endorsement of the so-called 31 December political accord in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and to put in place a transitional government of national unity.

A United Nations human rights expert today called on the Pakistani authorities to make it a top priority to locate, protect and return home four disappeared human rights and social media campaigners.

Sounding the alarm over the situation of thousands of migrants, asylum seekers and others enduring extreme cold conditions across Europe and Eastern Mediterranean, the United Nations migration agency has appealed for immediate action to save them from freezing to death.

The United Nations has condemned yesterday's terrorist attacks near the Parliament in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, and the residence of the Provincial Governor of Kandahar, calling for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.