Press Conference

The ministerial meeting of the Security Council on the Middle East that took place today was critical in reaffirming a common position on the peace process after the Gaza crisis and Israeli elections, Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, said today at a Headquarters press conference.

“This is a moment that requires audacity”, President of the General Assembly Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, of Nicaragua, said today, as he discussed the draft outcome document for the Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development, to be held in New York from 1 to 3 June 2009.

Senior advisers to the President of the General Assembly yesterday sounded a call to African nations to participate in next month’s high-level economic summit, as a way to make up for their absence at the creation of the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944.

Seven months ahead of the deadline on a new international climate change agreement, Connie Hedegaard, Minister for Climate and Energy of Denmark, was in New York to press Governments to prepare for complex negotiations on an “ambitious and truly global deal”, scheduled for December in the Danish capital.

A year after Cyclone Nargis devastated much of Myanmar and intensified the suffering of children throughout the country, human rights groups urged the Security Council to move swiftly to protect the tens of thousands of children recruited as soldiers by local armed groups.

Following is a transcript of UN Secreatry-General Ban Ki-moon's press conference held in New York today:

The statement made yesterday by the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation that “a build up of Georgian troops and police units is going on, heavy weapons, armoured vehicles and artillery are being deployed” was “yet another example of Soviet-era propaganda”, the Permanent Representative of Georgia to the United Nations said during a press conference this afternoon.

During its May presidency, the Russian Federation would continue to pursue the policy of consolidating the Security Council’s prerogatives under the United Nations Charter and its main responsibility to maintain international peace and security, Vitaly Churkin, the country’s Permanent Representative, said today.

The United Nations was well equipped to tackle an Influenza A (H1N1) pandemic through up-to-date preparedness plans in its country offices, funds, programmes, peacekeeping missions and other parts of the Organization, David Nabarro, Senior United Nations System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

With developing countries starting to feel the sting from recessions rooted in rich nations, there was a special need for the United Nations, especially its most representative body, the 192-member General Assembly, to identify inclusive responses to mitigate the impact of the ongoing economic crisis, and initiate the broad-based dialogue required to transform our outdated global financial system, a senior adviser to Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann said today.