The Sahel is awash with challenges — from food insecurity and terrorist-related security threats to the negative impacts of climate change — but it has the potential to change for the better through an ongoing focus on sustainable development, speakers in the Security Council agreed today.
Once limited to transiting cocaine, heroin and other illicit drugs to destinations abroad, West and Central African countries have now become both users and producers of those substances, the United Nations anti-crime chief told the Security Council today, noting that the region accounted for 87 per cent of all pharmaceutical opioids seizures identified in his office’s latest report.
Confirming the existence of tunnels dug under the “Blue Line” separating Lebanon and Israel, the head of United Nations peacekeeping told the Security Council today that they represent a violation of Council resolution 1701 (2006).
A window for peace has finally opened in South Sudan, with more political progress made in the last four months than over the last four years, the head of United Nations peacekeeping said today, telling the Security Council that the fragile situation in the country will continue to require international support.
The Security Council today encouraged the Peacebuilding Commission to present it with concise and targeted recommendations on efforts to sustain peace in specific situations, ahead of reviews of mandates of United Nations operations.
The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process expressed deep concern today over the weakening of the international consensus around a two-State resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, as he briefed the Security Council on continuing violence, provocation and settlement activity on the ground.
Serbia and Kosovo must avoid steps that could further exacerbate tensions and set back dialogue towards normalizing relations, the head of United Nations peacekeeping told the Security Council today.
Against the backdrop of increasingly complex and evolving threats to global peace and security, divisions within the Security Council – including between its five permanent and 10 elected members – continue to hamstring the work of the committees and working groups tasked with tackling them, said the Chairs of the 15-member organ’s subsidiary bodies in their annual briefing.
Despite undeniable threats to their safety, the Afghan people came out to vote for a better future for their country in the recent parliamentary elections, the top-ranking United Nations official in the country told the Security Council today.
Violations of the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute – including failure to arrest fugitives as they cross international borders - are unlikely to end if the Security Council remains unwilling to take action against such non-compliance, the Court’s Chief Prosecutor said today, as she briefed the 15-member organ on her investigation into alleged crimes in the western Darfur region of Sudan.
