Meetings Coverage

People around the world were dying because their needs went unmet by health systems that were fragmented, broken and struggling, the Commission on Population and Development heard today as it continued its general debate on national experiences related to health, morbidity, mortality and development.

While advances in information technology held many benefits for society, its dark underside ‑‑ computer-based fraud and forgery, illegal interception of private communications, interference with data and misuse of electronic devices ‑‑ required States to develop an organized, international response, delegates said today at the Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

The sustainability of the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo would depend on the success of the efforts to stimulate recovery and reconstruction and to ensure the effective presence and authority of the State, as well as consolidation of democratic structures, the Head of the United Nations Mission in that country told the Security Council today.

The Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice opened this morning in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, with a fervent call by United Nations and Government officials for stronger global cooperation among all stakeholders, as well as stronger legal tools to stamp out organized crime.

Members of the General Assembly committee negotiating a comprehensive anti-terrorism convention expressed hope this morning that remaining obstacles to completing the long-stalled draft text could be overcome during the Committee’s fourteenth session, which opened today.

While life expectancy had risen in all regions over the past 50 years -- one major achievement of the last century -- health improvements and medical advances were not reaching huge swaths of the developing world, mandating the global community to work harder to ensure that people did not die of preventable disease, the Commission on Population and Development heard today as it opened its forty-third session under the theme of “Health, morbidity, mortality and development”.

Plans were on track for an Iraqi mechanism to replace the fund that funnels the country’s export revenues towards development needs and international obligations, the United Nations Controller told the Security Council this morning.

The International Donors’ Conference “Towards a New Future for Haiti” raised almost $9.9 billion today in immediate and long-term assistance for the earthquake-devastated nation’s reconstruction, with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging “full and generous support” for the Haitian Government’s plan of action for recovery and development.

Although speakers in the Disarmament Commission continued to stress the urgent need for nuclear disarmament, some speakers during today’s debate, which concluded the formal exchange of views for the session, drew attention to the scourge of small arms and light weapons ‑‑ the equivalent of “weapons of mass destruction” in Africa ‑‑ while others emphasized the need to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.

The General Assembly’s Special Committee on Decolonization approved today the partial composition of its official delegation to attend the 2010 Pacific Regional Seminar -- to be held in Nouméa, New Caledonia, from 18 to 20 May –- and endorsed the list of experts and non-governmental organizations that will be invited to the event.