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Marking the International Day of Friendship, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged everyone to unite in a shared spirit of human solidarity to overcome the crises confronting the global society.

With all eyes on Yemeni peace negotiations, the United Nations envoy for the country announced today that the UN-supported talks under way in Kuwait have been extended for an additional week.

The Security Council this evening requested Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to establish a United Nations police officers component in Burundi for an initial period of one year to monitor the security situation and to support the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) in monitoring rights violations and abuses in the crisis-gripped country.

The Security Council today extended for two weeks the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), allowing time for its membership to consider options on adapting the operation’s mandate amid renewed violence in the world’s youngest country.

Ahead of the six-year remembrance of a mass rape of more than 300 civilians residents of the Walikale region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by armed groups, the United Nations envoy on sexual violence in conflict has called on the international community to be relentless in seeking accountability for the crimes.

As the humanitarian crisis reaches distressing levels in Syria, particularly in and around battle-torn Aleppo, the United Nations envoy for the country welcomed today initiatives aimed at assisting the civilian population trapped amid the fighting and, “under the right circumstances,” the implementation of humanitarian corridors.

Five middle-distance runners from South Sudan, until recently living in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, have flown out of the capital city of Nairobi to take part in the first-ever Olympic refugee team for the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the United Nations refugee agency has said.

The United Nations has temporarily halted humanitarian assistance missions in north-eastern Nigeria’s restive Borno state after yesterday’s attack on a multi-agency aid convoy which had been delivering desperately needed relief aid in a remote area of the region, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has deplored recent shocking attacks in northern Syrian cities of Qamishli and Idlib, which killed more than 60 people including many children; reiterating that all parties to the conflict should respect international humanitarian law and protect children and civilians.

The announcement that the United States might have discovered its first cases of locally-transmitted Zika virus, and concerns raised by some of the athletes headed to the Olympic Games in Rio, are renewing fears about the disease, which the United Nations’ health agency declared a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ in February 2016.