In spite of the hard task it faced, the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala was delivering “very obvious” results and breaking taboos, President Álvaro Colom Caballeros said at a Headquarters press conference today.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
In their first visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in six years, senior United Nations political aides had called on Korean officials last week to return promptly to the six-party talks on eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula, B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, said at a Headquarters news conference today.
With the number of journalists killed worldwide surging to 70 last year, Robert Mahoney, Deputy Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists called for stronger action by the United Nations, as he announced the release of his group’s annual report this morning.
As Haitians observed a national day of mourning to mark one month since the massive earthquake levelled much of their capital city, Port-au-Prince, and left more than 200,000 dead, the scale of the disaster was becoming clear, and early recovery programmes were under way to help the traumatised Caribbean nation regain a sense of life and community, senior United Nations officials said today.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in a new report issued today, argued that attacks on education should be a trigger for Security Council intervention through its monitoring and reporting mechanism on children in armed conflict, on par with action now being taken to combat child soldiering.
Looking to re-energize the global push to prevent or mitigate the impacts of climate change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today launched a new high-level advisory panel -- to be co-chaired by the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and Ethiopia -- intended to identify effective mechanisms for raising up to $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor nations cut emissions and foster green growth.
Following its North American launch yesterday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), organizers of the International Year of Biodiversity said today that they must compete with hot-button topics such as climate change in order to rouse world attention to disappearing biodiversity, with losses estimated at a cost of €1.5 to €3 trillion annually.
Nearly one month after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake rattled Haiti and levelled most of its densely-packed capital, Port-au-Prince, the United Nations ‑‑ with much of the world body’s staff working out of tents and a few sleeping in their cars ‑‑ finally had a clear picture of the breadth of the devastation, and was racing to ramp up the massive recovery and reconstruction effort ahead of the coming rainy season, senior peacekeeping officials said today.
The recent appointment of a Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict was a clear indication of the international community’s commitment to ending a crime that devastates millions of women and children, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today.
The situation around Port-au-Prince remained calm despite continuing precarious conditions, and assistance was needed to prepare for the approaching hurricane season, Kim Bolduc, the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) said today.