The Latest: Humanitarian chief says system is broke
Stephen O'Brien told a side event on humanitarian financing at the U.N. summit that adopted new development goals for the next 15 years that humanitarian aid was originally supposed to be temporary — "a first aid box."
The U.N. secretary-general has urged Iran's president to help pursue political solutions to the grinding conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
A statement from Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Saturday says Ban encouraged President Hassan Rouhani to "contribute to a political settlement of the crises in the region, particularly with regard to Syria and Yemen."
Chinese President Xi Jinping is pledging billions in development aid to the world's poorest nations and says China will forgive the debts due this year of those worst-off.
Cuban President Raul Castro says the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between his country and the United States constitutes "major progress," but the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba is the "main obstacle" to his country's development.
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran is expressing regret over the "heart-rending" trampling to death of hundreds of Muslim pilgrims near a Saudi Arabia holy site this week and calling for a swift investigation into it and similar incidents.
Rouhani also linked violence against man and violence against nature, saying that "terrorists, in fact, tend to grow and thrive in lands deprived and damaged by environmental disasters and easily pour across borders like haze."