U.N.

"We are facing so many situations of disasters. We badly need a symbol of hope. I strongly believe Cyprus can be the symbol of hope at the beginning of 2017," the U.N. Secretary-General said.

On Saturday the Security Council unanimously passed a resolution in support of a bid by Russia and Turkey to end the violence in Syria. This week a cease-fire was announced in the war-torn country.

The U.S.-backed resolution fell two votes short of adoption Friday. It would have been the Security Council's most recent attempt to stabilize the restive country.

In a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council, commission chief Yasmin Sooka reported murder and rape on an "epic" scale. "We are running out of adjectives to describe the horror," she said.

Kenya says it extended the deadline after a request from the U.N. The country says it is closing the camp because of security concerns, but rights groups worry about what it might mean for refugees.

In rural Uganda, "radio is everything," as one journalist puts it. So the U.N., hoping to hear more rural voices, used a tiny amount of data to build speech recognition software for new languages.

The fighters are allegedly killing civilians who refuse to comply with their instructions or who they suspect are loyal to the Iraqi security forces, the U.N. human rights chief says.

That's despite far fewer people making the treacherous passage. The U.N. says smugglers set people off on mass embarkations on "flimsy inflatable rafts that often do not make the journey."