Press Conference

Responding to criticism of Equatorial Guinea’s recent execution of four men accused of an armed attack on the country’s presidential palace last year, the country’s Ambassador said this afternoon that the procedure was constitutional and necessary in the face of repeated violent threats against the State that began when domestic oil started flowing.

In the wake of the latest incidents of mass sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, perpetrators must be held to account and the response of the United Nations must be improved, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict said this afternoon.

The Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this morning voiced hope that a newly-released review of Panel working methods would strengthen its efforts, as well as its public credibility, while he stressed that the overall conclusions of its assessments were not in doubt.

Independent experts asked to assess the processes and procedures of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report today recommending fundamental reforms to the Panel’s management structure to reduce errors and the potential for bias in its influential — but recently criticized — reviews of global climate change patterns.

As the number of people significantly affected by the catastrophic floods in Pakistan climbed to an estimated 17.2 million, the United Nations was scaling up relief operations, John Holmes, outgoing Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said today during a Headquarters news conference.

Amid international outrage over the rape and assault of at least 154 Congolese civilians during an attack by two armed groups in North Kivu Province in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Roger Meece, the Special Representative for the Democratic Republic of the Congo said the United Nations was reviewing how it conducted patrols in the area and how to improve communication with local communities.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan called on donors Thursday to massively scale up aid to that flood-ravaged country in order to prevent a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe.

With Russian forests aflame and Pakistan ravaged by floods, it was increasingly urgent to reach an adequate agreement at the next conference of parties to the climate change treaty, Bolivia’s representative to the United Nations said this morning.

Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press conference held in New York today, 9 August:

Rape must not be dismissed as collateral damage, or cultural, or inevitable, for it was one of the great peace and security challenges of our time, said Margot Wallström, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, at a Headquarters press conference today.