Ban Ki

According to him, this is necessary because the coronavirus pandemic not only threatens progress in the fight against hunger and poverty in the world, but also threatens to deepen existing conflicts and encourage the outbreak of new ones.

Former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres was sworn in on Dec. 12 as the ninth United Nations Secretary-General, pledging to personally help broker peace in various conflicts and reform the 71-year old world body to become more effective. 

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday urged leaders of divided Cyprus to return to the negotiating table and clinch a deal on reuniting the island, saying "they must not let this historic opportunity slip".

A deal to find a peaceful solution to the more than 40-year-old conflict on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus is closer than ever and could be clinched by the end of this year, a senior U.N. envoy said Nov. 1. 

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Oct. 10 asked once again the Security Council to formally request that the International Criminal Court (ICC) begin investigations of war crimes in Syria.
Such a request was blocked in 2014 by Russia and China, which have veto powers, but Ban said the council should try again.

Haiti faces a humanitarian crisis that requires a "massive response" from the international community, the United Nations chief said Oct. 10, with at least 1.4 million people needing emergency aid following last week's battering by Hurricane Matthew.

The landmark Paris agreement on climate change will enter into force on Nov. 4, after a coalition of the world's largest polluters and small island nations threatened by rising seas pushed it past a key threshold on Oct. 5.

The landmark Paris climate pact was poised to enter into force globally this week after the European Parliament joined the world's top polluters in endorsing the deal to slow the planet's dangerous temperature rise.

"It's closer than ever before, but there's still a way to go," said Eide in an interview with the U.N. News Centre published on their website on Sept. 28. 

Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades has rejected a calendar proposal demanded by Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı for the peace talks to end with a deal before the end of 2016, at a trilateral meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon over the weekend.