Noon Briefings

The Special Adviser to the Secretary-General for Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday in Myanmar for a three-day visit at the invitation of the Government. He will hold meetings in Naypyitaw and Yangon with the newly installed Government, political parties, civil society organizations and other key interlocutors.

The Secretary-General opened the Fourth United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries in Istanbul today. He said that today there are 48 least developed countries that are home to nearly 900 million people, or 12 per cent of the global population, half of whom live on less than $2 a day. This cannot continue, he said.

The Secretary-General addressed a major conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, today on the changes under way in the Middle East and North Africa. He discussed what the countries of Central and Eastern Europe can contribute from their own transitional experiences, and the marked differences between 1989 Europe and the 2011 Arab Spring, not least that some countries in the Middle East and North Africa were experiencing bloodshed and violence, rather than a velvet revolution.

The report of the Independent Panel of Experts to investigate the source of the cholera outbreak in Haiti was made public yesterday, after it had been first presented to the Government of Haiti. The Secretary-General expresses his gratitude to the Panel and will carefully consider its findings and recommendations. He reiterates his deepest sympathies to the victims and says the UN will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Government and people of Haiti in the fight against the epidemic.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, told the Security Council this morning that the evidence shows that security forces in Libya have been shooting at peaceful demonstrators and, in the coming weeks, he will request that arrest warrants be issued against the three individuals who bear the greatest criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity committed there.

Marking World Press Freedom Day, the Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Director-General of UNESCO stressed that State authorities must do everything to counter impunity and to protect the safety of journalists. More than 500 journalists have lost their lives, with 60 killings reported worldwide in 2010 alone.

The Secretary-General this morning said that the death of Osama bin Laden is a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism. He noted that the General Assembly has adopted a global counter-terrorism strategy and that we will continue to work together with Member States to completely eradicate global terrorism.

The Secretary-General was appalled by the bombing in Marrakech, which killed and injured Moroccans and foreign nationals. He reiterated his firm rejection of the use of indiscriminate violence against innocent civilians. In their own statement to the press, the members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the terrorist attack in Marrakech.

Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe provided the Security Council with an update on Syria in an open meeting yesterday afternoon, saying that the anti-Government demonstrations that had started in mid-March have gradually, but steadily, increased in geographic scope and participation and the Syrian authorities have reacted with a mix of reform measures and increasingly violent repression.

In Côte d’Ivoire, OCHA says that thousands of people face enormous humanitarian needs. Their vulnerability is aggravated by a lingering lack of security in certain places, as well as by the difficulty in obtaining access to essential health, education and sanitation services. The United Nations has deployed an evaluation and coordination team to Abidjan and the western part of the country since 19 April, to identify the needs of the most vulnerable people.