Stressing that road traffic deaths and injuries remained a major public health and development problem with broad social and economic consequences, the Assembly today adopted a draft resolution titled “Improving global road safety”, cautioning that, if left unaddressed, the current situation could affect progress towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Despite an ever-precarious security situation that had claimed the lives of civilians and United Nations peacekeepers alike, the peace process in Mali was making headway along a timetable leading to elections later in 2018, the Secretary‑General’s Special Representative in that country told the Security Council today.
International migration was a global and multidimensional phenomenon of economic and social importance, the Commission on Population and Development heard today, as delegates shared ways to improve the management of flows, address key drivers and channel the potential of young people.
The Security Council, voting today on three separate draft resolutions in response to recent allegations of a chemical weapons attack in the Syrian town of Douma, failed to rally the votes needed to launch an “independent mechanism of investigation” into the incident, as delegates voiced frustration over the continued paralysis and the expanding rifts between nations.
The Security Council today decided to extend for one year the mandate of the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), while also laying out a staggered decrease in its uniformed personnel and requesting periodic progress assessments on the Secretary-General’s proposed drawdown and exit strategy.
Gateway cities were critical entry points for immigrants from a wide range of countries, serving as hubs for the collection, circulation and dispersion of goods, capital and people, the Commission on Population and Development heard today as it continued its annual session.
In an emergency meeting following claims of chemical weapons attacks against civilians in Douma, Syria, both Security Council members and officials briefing them voiced grave concern that the use of such weapons risked being normalized — and could contribute to rapidly escalating tensions between world Powers — for the first time since the end of the cold war.
Rapid urbanization presented some of today’s greatest modern development challenges, yet if effectively harnessed — especially by the world’s 1 billion migrants — it could unleash tremendous growth opportunities, speakers said today as the Commission on Population and Development opened its fifty‑first session.
The Security Council met this afternoon for the second time in less than a month to discuss a nerve-agent attack against Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British city of Salisbury in March, with the representative of the Russian Federation — which had requested the meeting — saying the United Kingdom was engaged in “a theatre of the absurd” by seeking to pin responsibility on his country.
The Security Council today expressed deep concern over the political situation in Burundi, the slow progress of the inter‑Burundian dialogue and the lack of engagement by the Government in that process.
