Reporting on her humanitarian mission to Sri Lanka last week, Catherine Bragg, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, said that the humanitarian needs in that country were “still significant” and activities should be stepped up to address the most critical.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
The United Nations peacebuilding architecture was bolstering its ability to help post-conflict nations avoid the all-too-common fate of relapsing into violence after the departure of peacekeeping missions, Peter Wittig (Germany), outgoing Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission, said today.
The success of the new United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) in its quest to advance the status of women and girls worldwide depended largely on the efforts of many different actors, but above all, on the political will and the work of the United Nations, Governments, civil society, and the media, said its Executive Director, Michelle Bachelet.
French judicial authorities had agreed to surrender rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana to face trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, ending years of attempts to apprehend him for alleged participation in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Court’s Chief Prosecutor, said at a Headquarters press conference.
A race was under way between Somali pirates and the rest of the world and, without fast, strong action, “we will reach a point of no return where we will be unable to turn things around”, warned the United Nations top official charged with tackling the legal issues related to Somali piracy.
In the wake of a unanimous Security Council decision this morning to strengthen by 2,000 troops the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Côte d’Ivoire — where a power struggle persisted over the presidential election result — the possibility of genocide and related crimes were of grave concern, said United Nations experts during a press conference at New York Headquarters today.
The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Côte d’Ivoire, Choi Young-jin, said today that the political impasse in the country was continuing, that outgoing President Laurent Gbagbo was still refusing to relinquish power following his request for a power-sharing arrangement with newly elected President Alassane Ouattara, and that there was “no common ground for dialogue”.
General Assembly President Joseph Deiss (Switzerland) expressed worries today over the escalation of violence and mayhem in Côte d’Ivoire resulting from Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to step down after losing that West African nation’s November presidential election to Alassane Ouattara.
Climate change, the international financial system and South-South cooperation would be among the most important issues to be addressed by the “Group of 77” developing countries and China in 2011, Jorge Argüello (Argentina), its incoming Chairman, said at a Headquarters press conference today.
Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for the country told correspondents at Headquarters today that most humanitarian targets had been achieved while reconstruction should be accelerated, though that would necessarily be a long-term process.