Press Conference

With more than 200,000 people having fled the Sudanese army’s operations in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, along with the decimation of crops and evidence of mass graves, a cleric from the province and representatives of international civil society called this afternoon on the Security Council to act.

Looking back over an “intense” three-year tenure at the helm of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, outgoing Under-Secretary-General Alain Le Roy said that, despite some shortcomings, blue helmets should be credited for their achievements in reducing the scale of conflicts around the world.

With the situations in Syria, Libya and Somalia becoming increasingly more worrisome, and attention needed on peacekeeping and other issues, the usually light August agenda of the Security Council was quickly filling up, the permanent representative of India, which holds presidency of the body for the month, said this afternoon.

With more than $1 billion in aid still needed, images emerging from the Horn of Africa of starving women and children must serve as a “wake-up call” to donors, said the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator today, as she briefed correspondents on that region’s worst drought in 60 years.

While many Governments were actively pursuing reforms to dismantle legal barriers holding back women’s empowerment, millions of women still faced an uphill battle in the struggle to undo negative stereotypes, lock down property rights and successfully confront sexual harassment in the workplace, the Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women said today.

President Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire today sought to assure the international community that his topmost priority was not to punish or seek revenge against his opponents, but to strengthen State institutions, restore the rule of law, protect the human rights of all Ivorians without distinction, fight against impunity and ensure national reconciliation.

Fresh from addressing the Security Council, the commanders of four United Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa and the Middle East addressed a Headquarters press conference today on their efforts to protect civilians in Darfur, address charges of human trafficking among senior peacekeepers in Liberia and, more generally, implement measures to ensure that troops everywhere were held to the highest standards of conduct.

A year after the General Assembly’s adoption of a landmark resolution on the human right to water and sanitation, President Evo Morales Ayma of Bolivia appealed to the international community to ensure its availability to all as a public good, rather than a private commodity to be bought and sold.

Condemning Friday’s bombing in Oslo and the shooting massacre at a Norwegian summer camp, delegates and youth advocates said today that this week’s General Assembly’s High-Level Meeting on Youth would aim to end such extremist behaviour and guide young people on a path of tolerance and understanding. “We are here to prevent what happened in Norway in the future,” Jean-Francis Zinsou (Benin), a co-facilitator of the Meeting, said at a Headquarters press conference.

In a wide-ranging press conference at Headquarters today, Michael Williams, United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, assessed the progress and setbacks in the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701 (2006), saying that major issues — including the existence of arms outside State control, their use as a political instrument and Israel’s presence in the border village of Ghajar — must be tackled in order for Lebanon to exercise full sovereignty over its territory.