This year had been a “game changer” as the world reached a critical turning point in the response to the global HIV epidemic, averting thousands of deaths, preventing thousands more infections and breaking long-standing political barriers, Bertil Lindblad, Director, New York Office of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said at a Headquarters press conference today.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
The wave of democratic reforms sweeping the Middle East was a positive development, but the United States was not embracing those changes in a constructive way, a leading Iranian academic and politician said during a Headquarters news conference today.
Despite damage to thousands of homes and the closure of hundreds of schools, roads and health facilities amid a rising incidence of water-borne diseases, news of the severe flooding suffered by countries in Central America had not made international headlines, Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Catherine Bragg said at Headquarters today.
Without concerted action to slow climate change, prevent further environmental damage and reduce deep inequalities within and among nations, impressive human development gains in the last several decades, especially in the world’s poorest nations, could be halted and even reversed, according to a new report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched today at a Headquarters press conference.
At a press conference at Headquarters today, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Prosecutor for the Hague-based International Criminal Court, said that the Libyan case had set “new standards” for international procedures and investigations.
Just over ninety days after the new Republic of South Sudan had become an independent country and had joined the United Nations as a Member State, the country was already managing to overcome some of the colossal challenges it faced, Hilde Johnson, Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), said at a Headquarters press conference today.
Saying that the Security Council was, as usual, looking at a fairly busy schedule for the coming month, José Filipe Moraes Cabral (Portugal), its President for November, today outlined its programme of work comprising both new and traditional agenda items.
Faiza Patel, Chair of the Human Rights Council’s Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination, told correspondents today about the Working Group’s visits to Equatorial Guinea, South Africa and Iraq.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the release of his vision statement on his “Sustainable Energy for All” initiative, and announced the members of the High-Level Group that would spearhead the initiative.
Only the nations of the world could decide the fate of thousands of landmines, weapons and ammunition stockpiles scattered across Libya, said Max Dyck, Programme Manager of the Joint Mine Action Coordination Team in Libya, at a Headquarters press conference today. He was joined by Justin Brady, Acting Director, United Nations Mine Action Service.