Noon Briefings

The head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, called on Governments today to accelerate their search for common ground, ahead of the Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico. She said that with less than two months left, a concrete outcome in December was urgently needed to restore faith in the ability of States Parties to take the negotiations forward.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released a 550-page report today, listing 617 of the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law over a 10-year period by both State and non-State actors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. High Commissioner Navi Pillay says the report “provides the most extensive account to date of the most serious violations committed between 1993 and 2003.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in its latest report on Afghanistan, says that opium poppy cultivation there remained as last year, but the production of opium was cut by half in 2010. The decrease was largely due to a plant infection hitting the major poppy-crop growing provinces of Helmand and Kandahar particularly hard.

Staffan de Mistura, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, told the Security Council this morning that events in recent months, including the July Kabul Conference and this month’s legislative elections, have been crucial for the country’s transition.

The Security Council heard a briefing this morning from Michael von der Schulenburg, the Secretary-General’s Executive Representative for Sierra Leone. He discussed preparations for the 2012 elections, and also noted the apprehension with which Sierra Leoneans view developments in neighbouring Guinea. Council members also heard an update on Côte d’Ivoire by the Special Representative for the country, Choi Young-jin.

Recalling the Quartet statement of last week, which reflected the united call of the international community urging Israel to extend the settlement restraint policy, the Secretary-General is disappointed that no such decision has yet been taken and concerned at provocative actions taking place on the ground.

The Secretary-General opened a high-level meeting on revitalizing the work of the Conference on Disarmament and taking forward multilateral disarmament negotiations this morning, saying much remains to be done both on weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons, and the political will of Member States was the decisive factor.

The Secretary-General opened the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly this morning, warning that we are seeing a new politics of polarization at work. Amid such uncertainty and so much confusion of purpose, he said, we naturally seek a moral compass. The soul of global governance involves taking a collective stand, principled and pragmatic, against forces that would divide us. That is why the United Nations remains the indispensable global institution for the twenty-first century.

The Secretary-General has appointed a panel to monitor the upcoming self-determination referenda for Southern Sudan and the Abyei Area, headed by former President of the United Republic of Tanzania Mr. Benjamin Mkapa.

This afternoon, the Secretary-General will host a meeting of the diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East peace process, which brings together the United Nations, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United States. The Quartet meeting is intended to support the current direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians.