Press Conference

There was firm evidence that both pro-Government elements and opposition forces in Libya were responsible for the recruitment of child soldiers, a war crime, Special Representative Radhika Coomaraswamy said at Headquarters today as she released the Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict.

Better integration between democracy assistance and diplomatic efforts was needed, correspondents were told today, at a Headquarters press conference on the issue of how the international democracy family can support activists in the field.

Three days before the high-level segment of the nineteenth Commission on Sustainable Development, Under-Secretary-General Sha Zukang and Chairman László Borbély highlighted the session’s crucial focus on the need for more efficient use of natural resources during a Headquarters press conference today. “We are focusing on concrete ways to use resources more efficiently,” said Mr. Sha, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

Presenting a new report on East Jerusalem at Headquarters today, its author, Ray Dolphin, said the separation barrier under construction there not only had profound humanitarian consequences, but could ultimately have political implications, as well. He said at a press conference that the report, by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, was the first comprehensive one on the humanitarian position of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

“The Asia-Pacific region is both a growth driver and anchor of stability for the global economy,” said Amr Nour, Director of the Regional Commissions New York Office, at a press conference to launch the 2011 report of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Children in the Central African Republic were being abducted, recruited into armed groups and denied humanitarian assistance, according to a new report by Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, entitled An Uncertain Future? Children and Armed Conflict in the Central African Republic.

The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said today that he would seek arrest warrants in the next few weeks for three people as part of his investigation into crimes against humanity committed in Libya since 15 February. He did not disclose their names, but said that the three individuals were deemed “most responsible” for ongoing attacks against civilians, including murder and persecution, since political unrest began in the North African country two month ago.

The Security Council would take advantage of a slightly lighter workload during May to take a week-long mission to the African continent, Gérard Araud, Permanent Representative of France, and Council President for the month, told reporters today at Headquarters.

At current fertility levels, the world’s population of nearly 7 billion was projected to reach 10.1 billion in the next 90 years, with most of that increase generated by high-fertility countries, Hania Zlotnik, Director of the Population Division in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said at Headquarters today.

While immense progress had been made in the fight against malaria over the last five years, the goal of near-zero deaths from the highly preventable and treatable disease by 2015 still faced many hurdles, Ray Chambers, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Malaria, said today.