Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, whose current term expires on Dec. 31, announced last month that he is seeking a second five-year term.

The U.N. chief also urged international action ``to fight propaganda and disinformation.''

``I am available to serve a second term as secretary-general of the United Nations, if that will be the will of member states,'' Guterres said in a letter.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for $4.2 billion in the next two months for the World Health Organization's COVAX program.

Antonio Guterres, the head of the United Nations, challenged world leaders to make 2021 the year that humanity ends its "war on nature."

As of Friday, the treaty had 49 signatories, and the United Nations said the 50th ratification from Honduras had been received.

Kept apart by a devastating pandemic and dispersed across the globe, world leaders convened electronically Tuesday for an unprecedented high-level meeting.

Army troops and other rescuers worked their way through mud and debris along the flooded Kuma River, where many houses and buildings were submerged nearly to their roofs.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres made the comments in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of Friday's anniversary of the signing of the U.N. Charter

For more than six weeks the 15-member council has been trying to agree on a text that ultimately aims to back a March 23 call by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres for a ceasefire in global conflicts so the world can focus on the pandemic.