The world would commence a new era on 21 December 2012, according to the Mayan calendar, which coincided with an important date in the United Nations calendar, when preparations would begin for the 2014 World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, top Guatemalan officials said today.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
Announcing two new arrest warrants for serious crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said this afternoon that action on the warrants was critical to help end massacres of civilians in the eastern Kivu provinces of the vast country.
The Asia-Pacific region will continue to be the fastest growing region in the world this year despite a drop in the growth rate from 7 per cent in 2011 to 6.5 per cent this year, correspondents heard at a Headquarters press conference to launch the 2012 Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific produced by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for that region (ESCAP).
To address the problem of violence against indigenous women and girls, Governments and United Nations agencies should compile disaggregated data on the scourge, which was institutional and structural in nature, but which also occurred at home and in the communities, correspondents heard at a Headquarters press conference.
The enduring impact of historical wrongs must be a priority for States as they reviewed their relationships with indigenous groups, emphasized leaders and activists at a Headquarters press conference marking the opening today of the eleventh annual United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Ahead of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development planned for June, representatives of international non-governmental organizations exchanged a variety of views on the idea of a “green economy” this morning at a Headquarters press conference.
With roughly seven weeks left before the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), civil society activists expressed both frustration and expectations today at a Headquarters press conference, urging Member States to accelerate and energize negotiations.
Laying out the programme of work of the Security Council in May, under the first presidency of Azerbaijan, the country’s Permanent Representative this afternoon vowed to work to maintain unity among members for addressing the conflict in Syria and the many other complex situations the body was seized with.
Three quarters of the 1.1 million pre-term babies who died each year around the world could be saved with a few simple and inexpensive interventions, said experts today as they launched a new report on premature births during a Headquarters press conference.
With rapid and widespread changes in the world’s human population, coupled with unprecedented levels of consumption, it was more urgent than ever to unravel the conundrum “what will happen when we run out of space and resources?,” experts warned today as they introduced a Royal Society of London study on how best to seize the opportunities — and avoid the harmful impacts — of population changes.