10 March 2010 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the head of the United Nations-backed panel tasked with preparing regular scientific reports on the impact of climate change today announced that the body, which is facing growing attacks from global warming sceptics, will undergo an independent and comprehensive review.

In 2007, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its Fourth Assessment Report, which found the warming of the climate is outpacing natural variability, driven largely by human activity.

5 March 2010 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today pledged to release up to $10 million in United Nations funds to support relief and recovery efforts in Chile, as he began a two-day visit to see the earthquake damage and assess how the world body can help.

“I am very moved to see such strong courage and resilience of the Chilean people,” Mr. Ban said upon his arrival in the capital, Santiago, where he was greeted by Foreign Minister Mariano Fernández and the Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena.

Message of the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2010

3 March 2010 – Gender equality and women’s empowerment are fundamental to the global mission of the United Nations to achieve equal rights and dignity for all. This is a matter of basic human rights, as enshrined in our founding Charter and the Universal Declaration. It is part of the Organization’s very identity.

But equality for women and girls is also an economic and social imperative. Until women and girls are liberated from poverty and injustice, all our goals -- peace, security, sustainable development -- stand in jeopardy.

26 February 2010 – The United Nations General Assembly today called for “independent, credible” investigations by both the Israeli Government and the Palestinian side into the deadly conflict in the Gaza Strip that started in late 2008.

At a meeting today in New York, 98 Member States voted in favour of a resolution on the follow-up to the report of the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict, and seven voted against it, with 31 abstentions. Assembly resolutions are non-binding.

24 February 2010 – In its Annual Report released today in Vienna, Austria, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is warning that the use of so called “date-rape drugs” is on the rise. INCB is also raising the alarm about new psychoactive substances which are easier to obtain and under less stringent international controls.