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Urging greater efforts to identify and address the gaps that prevent the most disadvantaged of the world’s 2.2 billion children from enjoying their rights, the United Nations released an innovative new report today spotlighting the importance of data in targeting funds and action to reach those who need it most.

The United Nations must use science and technology to strengthen its policy-making on sustainable development, reducing inequality and eradicating extreme poverty, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said launching his advisory board of scientists.

Africa will always find a ready and willing partner in the United Nations as it progresses on the road of economic development to provide peace, more jobs, greater equality and better living conditions to its peoples, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told leaders of the continent’s 54 States today.

Seeking to ensure that the world can feed a fast growing population, expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050, the United Nations today published voluntary international standards to improve conservation of the crops that are crucial to food security by preserving biodiversity in gene banks and in the field.

The decision by India’s Supreme Court to commute 15 death sentences to life imprisonment is a ‘significant step’, independent United Nations human rights experts today said, urging the country to establish a moratorium on executions with a view of abolishing the death penalty.

After a “tense but rather promising” meeting today between representatives of the Syrian Government and the main opposition group on reaching a political end to the country’s three-year-civil war, the United Nations/Arab League mediator said that the first round of talks will end tomorrow with no serious breakthrough and no major change in the position of either side.

Unless the security situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) improves, humanitarian agencies will not have sufficient access to people in the provinces outside the capital Bangui, the United Nations relief arm today warned.

Global warming is unequivocal, human influence has been the dominant cause since the mid-20th century, and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, already at levels not seen in at least 800,000 years, will persist for many centuries, the final version of the latest United Nations report on climate change warned today.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan is seeking to verify reports of human rights violations in the conflict that erupted just over a month ago, a spokesperson today said, as peacekeepers are boosting patrols in the world’s youngest nation.

The Security Council today extended the long-running United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) until 31 July 2014, noting that progress made so far had not yet resulted in a comprehensive and durable settlement between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot sides.