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With no let-up in the flood of people pouring into Europe as they flee conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere, the United Nations refugee agency and its partners are appealing to donors for $550 million to support the ongoing humanitarian response for 2016.

The Security Council today moved to set up a United Nations political mission in Colombia, approving a team of international observers to monitor disarmament should the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) reach a final agreement to end Latin America’s longest armed conflict.

Intra-Syrian talks that were scheduled to begin in Geneva today under United Nations sponsorship will now start on Friday, with the first priority being a broad ceasefire, humanitarian aid, and halting the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has managed to send food supplies inside areas under siege in the central Yemeni city of Taiz where residents have been suffering in dire conditions with very little food.

The global average surface temperature in 2015 broke all previous records by a strikingly wide margin, according to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which announced today that for the first time on record, temperatures were about 1 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial era.

With South Sudan’s parties missing last week’s deadline to set up the Transitional Government of National Unity amid deadlock over establishing 28 states, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on the war-torn country’s African partners to save the peace process.

Concerned that construction on a new metro line in Lahore, Pakistan, has led to numerous forced evictions and damage to historic and cultural heritage sites, United Nations human rights experts have called on the Government to stop the work and provide more details on the project.

Against the backdrop of renewed military confrontation, the political process to resolve the conflict in Darfur through dialogue remains fragmented with limited progress, the United Nations peacekeeping chief today informed the UN Security Council.

Facing a global epidemic in childhood obesity with the number of overweight children under five on track to jump from 42 million to 70 million over the next decade, a United Nations report today called on governments to reverse the trend by promoting healthy foods and physical activity.

Wrapping up visit to Mal, the United Nations Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, Toby Lanzer, said that he had seen both progress and challenges on security and access to basic services for crisis-affected communities, while underscoring the importance of full commitment – from national authorities and the international community – to move the country forward.