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United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today praised the UN's advisory committee on budgetary matters for its help in carrying out the world body's lifesaving work around the world, as the 16-member body marked the 70th anniversary of its establishment.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced today it has started distributing urgently needed food to people displaced by the recent surge in violence in Syria’s northern Aleppo.

Haiti's third consecutive year of drought, exacerbated by the global El Niño weather phenomenon, has driven people deeper into poverty and hunger, and doubled the severely food-insecure population, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today.

The United Nations-appointed monitor of the human rights situation in Belarus warned today that opposition leaders, activists, journalists, and many other citizens have been subjected to harassment, administrative procedures and fines since the country's October presidential election.

After nearly 30 years of conflict and acrimony that not only cost tens of thousands of lives but also eroded vital components of the State, Sri Lanka is still in the early stages of renewal, the United Nations human rights chief said today, ending a mission to the country.

Determining that the situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) remains a threat to international peace and security, the United Nations Security Council decided today to maintain the current personnel ceiling of more than 12,800 personnel in the military and police components of the UN peacekeeping operation in the country and to increase the number of corrections officers.

Given the ability of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to adapt quickly to new circumstances and the steady stream of foreign fighters joining the group's ranks, United Nations Member States must mount a strategic response that includes addressing the underlying political and socio-economic causes of conflicts, particularly in Syria and Libya, the top UN political official told the Security Council today.

World leaders must come together in 2016 to renew their commitments to humanity and unite to prevent and end crisis and reduce vulnerability, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, telling UN Member States that the World Humanitarian Summit will provide an opportunity for “concrete steps towards ending the suffering experienced by billions of people today.”

While the world clearly has the political will and legal tools to take on human traffickers and their criminal networks, what are needed is more meaningful international cooperation and adequate funding to take effective action, senior United Nations officials said today, warning that the scourge now has victims spread across 152 different citizenships in 124 countries.

Welcoming a proposal by the United Nation's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the first binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions from the aviation industry, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called today for further strengthening of emissions standards as quickly as possible.