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United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the next phase of the electoral process in Haiti, which will take place on Sunday with the first round of presidential elections, the second round of legislative elections and the holding of municipal elections.

The Israel-Palestine conflict has “once again entered a dangerous phase,” United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told the Security Council today, warning that the latest eruption of violence, rising tensions at holy sites in Jerusalem and the alarmingly vitriolic nature of public discourse in the region is rooted in the lack of hope on both sides that peace is possible and the absence of a genuine political horizon.

Concerned about tensions between opposition parties and the Government of the Republic of the Congo ahead of the referendum on a new draft constitution in the country, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has encouraged all stakeholders to choose the path of dialogue and to peacefully resolve any disputes that might arise.

Governments and international organizations are failing to ensure adequate protections to whistleblowers and sources of information, according to a new report by the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression.

On her two-day visit to Mauritania, Ertharin Cousin, the Executive Director of the World Food Program (WFP), saw at first hand the challenges faced by nearly 1 million food insecure people amid rising malnutrition in the country.

The top United Nations human rights official today strongly criticized the detention of migrants and refugees in the Czech Republic, drawing attention to the violations of the rights of children among them and to credible reports that authorities are routinely strip-searching migrants to confiscate the $10 a day they are charged for their own detention.

Continuing his visit to Middle Eastern countries to help ease current tensions between Israel and Palestine, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met today with King Abdullah II of Jordan in Amman, and stressed the responsibility of Arab leaders “to encourage calm and to ensure that this crisis does not get out of control.”

Three United Nations agencies today warned that extreme hunger is pushing people to the brink of a catastrophe in parts of South Sudan, as a new analysis found that 3.9 million people nationwide now face severe food insecurity.

The turmoil and crises the international community faces clearly demonstrate the disasters that may occur when human rights are “neglected and ground down,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, said today in a wide-ranging address to UN Member States in New York.

The top United Nations health official in Yemen is appealing for unrestricted access to Taiz, where “innocent lives are at risk” in the besieged highland city where more than 3.3 million people are in critical need of health assistance, safe drinking water, food and fuel.