Press Conference

In the two weeks since Somalia’s new Transitional Government began taking shape, a new constitution was being written, discussions were under way on preserving fledgling institutions and unprecedented steps had been taken by top brass to examine military logistics and visit the front lines in a push to capture and hold new territories, a top Somali official said at a Headquarters press conference.

During its two years on the Security Council, Austria had chaired three key subsidiary bodies, established an unprecedented ombudsman office for those wishing to be taken off the Consolidated List of individuals and entities associated with Al-Qaida and the Taliban, and perhaps most importantly, overseen the Council’s adoption of resolution 1894 (2009) on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.

Solidarity — in particular between generations — was a critical element of global economic and social welfare, said participants at a Headquarters press conference today.

Amid increased drug use and savvier efforts by narco-traffickers who continued to evade detection in West Africa, a multi-agency regional programme, launched today, aimed to stemming new drug and crime trends in a comprehensive, integrated manner, Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told journalists today at a Headquarters press conference.

In a world where demographics, economic needs and the effects of climate change were set to spur rising numbers of migrants, Governments and intergovernmental organizations needed to invest adequate financial and human resources to ensure that societies — and migrants themselves — reaped migration’s full potential, Michele Klein-Solomon, Observer for the International Organization for Migration to the United Nations, said today.

With a much-watched referendum on the horizon in Southern Sudan, a “very tense” situation in Côte d’Ivoire and disputed presidential election results in Haiti, United Nations peacekeepers were working around the clock to prevent very real challenges from destabilizing hard-won gains achieved in their areas of operation, said Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy in his quarterly Headquarters press conference today.

The agreement that emerged from Cancún would not strengthen the Kyoto Protocol, but rather, it would replace it with a much weaker accord at a time when there was need for greater commitment from developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Bolivia’s Ambassador said today. Speaking at a Headquarters press conference, Pablo Solón said that what had been agreed in Cancún did not guarantee stabilization of the temperature at a limit that protected human life and nature.

After engaging in the “most complex negotiation in the history of the world” delegates at last week’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico successfully brokered key global agreements on mitigation, adaptation, deforestation, financing and technology transfer, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Planning Robert Orr said this afternoon.

While investments in malaria prevention and control had made major strides towards eradicating the disease, experts at a Headquarters press conference today said that progress remained fragile – and more remained to be done.

The United Nations has launched an appeal for nearly $530 million in 2011 to help humanitarian groups operating in Somalia meet the basic needs of 2 million of the war-ravaged country’s most vulnerable people, officials of the world body said today at a Headquarters press conference.