Press Conference

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has tapped a team of senior United Nations officials to carry out an impact assessment in the aftermath of the unprecedented hurricane which earlier this week had upended millions of lives and crippled the Organization’s facilities and operations across a nearly thousand mile area that stretched from the north-eastern United States to the Caribbean.

Fewer States around the world now maintained the death penalty in their national laws, and even among those that did so, a smaller number were engaged in active executions, senior human rights officials said at a Headquarters press conference today.

Blasphemy laws should be repealed worldwide to ensure the rights of converts, said the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief at a Headquarters news conference today.

As Israel accelerated expansion of illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in continued defiance of United Nations resolutions and international human rights and humanitarian law, Israeli and international companies profiting from the settlements should be boycotted, a top human rights expert said at a Headquarters news conference this afternoon.

While the fast pace of reform in Myanmar was encouraging, bolder steps were needed to end persistent right violations, particularly in strife-torn border areas, that were testing the country’s nascent democracy, a top human rights expert said during a Headquarters news conference today.

Durable solutions were needed to address the plight of the world’s internally displaced persons, particularly against a backdrop of unfolding “megatrends” such as rapid urbanization, population growth and more prevalent natural disasters, a senior United Nations human rights expert told reporters at Headquarters today.

Despite some optimistic signs from Iran’s Government, on the whole, the human rights situation in the country remained “disturbing”, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the issue told reporters today at Headquarters.

With a growing number of countries abolishing or suspending the death penalty, mounting evidence was making it possible to envision a future where the practice would be eradicated, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment told reporters at Headquarters today.

From being on the verge of open war to neighbours living together in stability, Sudan and South Sudan had made remarkable progress in their relations, Hervé Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said today at a briefing at Headquarters.

The financial indicators for the United Nations for 2012 were generally “positive and sound”, but the regular budget’s cash level would face pressure in the next three months as $855 million of the $2.4 billion budget remained unpaid, the Organization’s top management official said during a Headquarters news conference this afternoon.