Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

In progress at UNHQ

Meetings Coverage

GA/AB/3988

Budget Committee Takes Up Third Report on Restructuring of Peacekeeping Operations; Financing Proposals for Support Account for Peacekeeping, Brindisi Logistics Base

The Fifth Committee today heard the United Nations top officials responsible for peacekeeping and the mission support needed to sustain it review the successes and difficulties of the restructuring of operations begun in 2007, and lay out the approach they developed to ensure the support account for the operations strengthened the capacity to manage them in a changing world of greater financial constraints.
DEV/2880

As Istanbul Conference Opens, Secretary-General Urges Recognition of Least Developed Countries as ‘Vast Reservoirs of Untapped Potential’

ISTANBUL, 9 May — As the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries opened this morning, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, other senior international officials and Heads of State and Government called for a new vision to reverse the profound poverty of the people living in the world’s 48 poorest countries and lay a firm foundation for their integration into the world economy.

SC/10244

United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Head Briefs Security Council on Libya, Presses for Pause in Hostilities to Allow Evacuations, Aid Deliveries

The United Nations top humanitarian official this afternoon pressed for a temporary end to hostilities in Misrata and other areas in Libya in order to allow civilians in the strife-torn North African nation to leave and international relief workers to deliver vital humanitarian aid and assess the humanitarian situation on the ground. “Civilians are still coming under fire in these conflict areas. This has to stop,” said Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.
DEV/2883

Support for Informal Sector in Least Developed Nations Crucial to Growing National Economies, Thematic Debate Hears at Istanbul Conference

ISTANBUL, 9 May — While the private sector was the main force behind diversifying national economies and spurring integration into the global economy, in least developed countries, it was dominated by small and informal enterprises, making the creation of an enabling business environment essential for their advancement over the next decade, said participants in the first of six high-level thematic debates to be held during the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries.

DEV/2882

Least Developed Nations Declare They Lived Up to Their End of Bargain, Say Donors Must Live Up to Theirs, as Istanbul Conference Continues

ISTANBUL, 9 May — Declaring that they had lived up to their end of the development partnership bargain, leaders from developing nations called for renewed political will from donors to help them stimulate economic activity, create jobs, participate as equals in global trade and turn back the ravages of poverty, as talks on a new 10-year development programme for the world’s poorest countries got under way in Istanbul this afternoon.

SC/10243

Briefing Security Council, Bosnia and Herzegovina High Representative Describes Most Serious, Direct Challenges to Peace Agreement Since Signed in 1995

Beset by an upsurge in nationalist rhetoric and calls for further division, and still no prospect of forming a State-level Government seven months after holding general elections, Bosnia and Herzegovina faced a deteriorating political situation that could — if the current crisis deepened — have negative consequences for the entire region, Valentin Inzko, the High Representative, told the Security Council this morning.
ENV/DEV/1207

Commission on Sustainable Development Briefed on Working Group Negotiations

Meeting briefly at the end of the first week of its annual two-week session, the Commission on Sustainable Development was urged by its Chair to do its utmost — and perhaps go even further — to reach the goal of shaping critical global policies on transport; chemicals; waste management; mining; and a 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns.