Senior United Nations and African Union officials today announced plans to launch within the next 24 hours a regional strategy targeting notorious warlord Joseph Kony and his dwindling, but still vicious, band of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighters, suspected of committing mass atrocities in Uganda during the 1990s, now preying on civilians across a broad swath of Central Africa.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
An integrated approach to water management was crucial in putting the world on the path to a sustainable future, experts said today at a Headquarters press conference to mark the occasion of World Water Day.
With its “blue helmets” being called on to carry out increasingly challenging and complex peacekeeping missions, the United Nations was taking steps to bolster their ability to train national police officers, re-build security infrastructure and tackle organized crime in conflict-torn regions worldwide, the head of the Organization’s Police Division said this afternoon.
An immediate ceasefire was critical to solving the crisis in Syria, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) stressed at a Headquarters press conference today.
Just hours after the International Criminal Court delivered its first ever verdict — convicting former warlord Thomas Lubanga of conscripting child soldiers in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo — civil society actors at United Nations Headquarters hailed the decision as sending a powerful message that the Court “is a strong, credible institution delivering justice for victims”.
Protecting against double taxation on cross-border income, helping developing countries to encourage foreign investment, and combating the “scourges” of tax avoidance and tax evasion were the main priorities of the newest United Nations economic guidance document, said top officials at a Headquarters press conference today.
The United Nations humanitarian aid chief today expressed extreme alarm over the destruction she witnessed in Syria last week and called on the Syrian Government to allow aid agencies to deliver desperately needed relief supplies to civilians in the worst-hit parts of the strife-torn Arab country.
The head of the United Nations Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees today praised Brazil and India for recently increasing their financial aid to the Agency’s operations and called on other emerging economic powerhouses to follow suit. “We hope that other countries will step up to the plate and share the burden of this effort, which is important for the stability of the region and beyond, and more than anything else for the almost 5 million people that deserve attention,” said Filippo Grandi.
The United Nations stepped up its efforts to combat conflict-related sexual violence today, as the Department of Political Affairs unveiled new guidelines to help mediators confront that widespread scourge by placing the issue high on the agenda early on when brokering peace agreements and ceasefires, three top United Nations officials said today at a Headquarters press conference.
While broad progress had been made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, the statistics hid “massive” disparities within countries and regions, which underlined the urgent need to remove the barriers impeding key interventions, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today at a Headquarters press conference.