Meetings Coverage

DOHA, QATAR, 21 April — In the wake of the global financial crisis, it was important for the international community to be “inventive and courageous” in considering optimal economic models in their efforts to create a stable economic culture that would produce equitable growth, the incoming President of the Thirteenth Ministerial Meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XIII) said in Doha, Qatar, today.

With the world in the midst of an economic recovery that was “fragile at best”, bold ideas were required to transform the path and process of globalization so that countries buffeted by the global financial crisis could gain relief through more equitable growth, improved market access, scaled-up investment and other forms of cooperation, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in a message to the Thirteenth Ministerial Meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Welcoming the recent agreement by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to exchange letters and expressing hope such moves would maintain positive momentum towards resuming peace negotiations, B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, said today it was now important to transform that fragile opening into an opportunity to incrementally promote dialogue, as he briefed the Security Council on the latest developments in the region, including on the question of Palestine.

Acknowledging the unusually large attendance at the forty-fifth session of the Commission on Population and Development, which opened today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the turnout told only part of the story; the real message was the energy of the session and the presence of so many young people.

Through the strategic use of resources, digital technologies, social media platforms and enhanced partnerships with United Nations system offices and external media outlets, the Department of Public Information was expanding and improving the way it conveyed the United Nations message worldwide, the Organization’s senior communications official told the Committee on Information as it opened its annual session this morning.

Noting that the cessation of armed violence in Syria was “clearly incomplete”, and concerned about its recent escalation, the Security Council today beefed up the United Nations monitoring team of unarmed observers to that country authorized last weekend, subject to the Secretary-General’s assessment of relevant developments on the ground.

Reiterating its strong condemnation of the 12 April military coup in Guinea-Bissau and rejecting the unconstitutional creation of a Transitional National Council by the military leadership and its supporters, the Security Council today demanded the immediate restoration of constitutional order and the reinstatement of that West African nation’s legitimate Government.

While the Disarmament Commission had achieved the minimum necessary to consider its 2012 session a “relative success”, Chairman Enrique Román-Morey challenged delegates to also ask why — despite huge personal efforts and displays of flexibility — they had failed to achieve the consensus needed to allow them to prepare the ground for discussion of key disarmament matters elsewhere, in negotiating forums.

It was clearly a political-military coup and an act of military insubordination to the democratically elected civilian authorities, the Secretary-General’s top envoy in Guinea-Bissau said today of the 12 April events in the West African nation, which he said would be recorded in history as “one more coup that took place under the UN eye, and hence the whole international community”.

Expressing grave concern over the threat of terrorism and the risk of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands and trafficking networks of non-State actors, the Security Council today reaffirmed the need for all Member States to fully comply with their commitments to arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.