The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, next June, would give the international community a unique opportunity to build a global economic development model aimed at improving people’s lives and ensuring social equity while reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcity, the event’s Secretary-General said today.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
The Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety was a “major breakthrough” in global environmental negotiations, correspondents were told today at a Headquarters press conference held after the new treaty was opened for signature.
As delegates geared up for next year’s United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Secretary-General of that event called on them today to use that gathering to take collective action to save societies from mounting social tensions, ecological damage and the global economic crisis.
The United Nations and its international humanitarian partner agencies were steadily ramping up efforts to assist civilians affected by violent clashes in Libya, the Organization’s Emergency Relief Coordinator said during a Headquarters press conference today, just hours before she headed to North Africa to assess the situation first-hand.
Marketing deadly designer drugs online under innocuous names like “ivory wave” bath salts or plant food, drug dealers were turning hefty profits by selling to young people worldwide — a practice which the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) was working hard to end — one of its members said during a Headquarters news conference today.
A comprehensive strategy for Somalia and newly emergent crises in Africa would be among the priority issues to be considered during China’s March presidency of the Security Council, that country’s Permanent Representative told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference. “We cannot have a piecemeal solution,” Li Baodong said of Somalia, which would be the subject of an open debate on 10 March. He said that the situation remained very disturbing and deserved constant attention.
United Nations officials at the helms of the world body’s peacekeeping and drug enforcement activities today announced the signing of an agreement to further strengthen the partnership between those crucial security functions.
A search committee is poised to launch a “rigorous” and “novel” selection process for the next top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said officials close to the Court at a Headquarters press conference today.
Stressing the urgent need to extend basic schooling to all children, representatives of the United Nations and civil society organizations this afternoon welcomed over $16 million of private-sector grants and appealed for greater use of the resources and expertise of business to reach international goals in education.
The United Nations top humanitarian official told reporters today that while the world body’s marquee relief agencies were ramping up activities in the eastern part of Libya and along the country’s southern and western borders, she was very concerned that fighting in and around Tripoli was preventing a tangible assessment of the humanitarian needs there.