Bolivia planned to “denounce” the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 before 1 July, in order to enter a reservation to the provision on coca leaf chewing, a practice that under the Convention had to be phased out in 25 years — now elapsed — and then rejoin the treaty on the same day, with that reservation, the country’s Ambassador said today at a Headquarters press conference.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
Following his participation in a special event on the occasion of the inaugural celebration of International Widows’ Day at United Nations Headquarters in New York today, Raj Loomba, Founder and Chairman Trustee of the Loomba Foundation, thanked United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the international community at large for officially recognizing the day that his foundation had initiated in 2005.
While global markets for cocaine, heroin and cannabis had declined or remained stable over the last year, the production and abuse of prescription opioid and new synthetic drugs had risen, according to a new report launched today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The United Nations envoy on children and armed conflict today commended the Government of Chad for recently signing an agreement with the world body on ending the use of child soldiers in the central African country’s security forces.
The world’s oceans were at high risk of entering a phase of “globally significant” extinction of marine species, an international panel of marine experts warned at Headquarters today.
With an estimated 8 million premature deaths from non-communicable diseases occurring in developing countries each year, the upcoming high-level General Assembly meeting on the topic would bring an urgently needed focus to the problem, a panel of speakers participating in a preliminary media event on the issue said at Headquarters today.
It was critical for the outcome of the 2011 Conference of Parties to the Climate Change Convention to make operational the agreements reached last year in Cancun, but also to move forward on all aspects of the climate-change agenda, according to the Foreign Minister of South Africa, where the Conference will be held.
As diverse demands for United Nations peacekeeping continued to grow, more than 14,000 United Nations police officers — a force that was increasingly specialized and increasingly female — were deployed around the world, said the United Nations top police officer at a Headquarters press conference today.
An estimated 30 per cent of those requiring humanitarian assistance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was not being reached, said a top United Nations humanitarian official today at a New York Headquarters press conference, urging the international community to take steps towards improving access in that central African nation.
Paul De Lay, Deputy Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) hailed the world body’s expected adoption later today of a comprehensive strategy charting the global response to the deadly virus, including a commitment to halving sexual transmission of HIV by 2015, and a broader pledge to work towards increasing funding to tackle HIV/AIDS to between $22 billion and $24 billion per year by that time.