Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message to the World Summit on the Information Society 2017 Forum, in Geneva on 12 June:
The Security Council decided today to extend the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) until March 2018, as previously set out in resolution 2158 (2014).
The threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to stability in Central Africa’s should not be underestimated, particularly now with Ugandan and South Sudanese troops, as well as United States special forces having disengaged from the African Union Regional Task Force, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in the subregion warned in the Security Council this afternoon.
Belligerents in eastern Ukraine have repeatedly failed to implement ceasefire agreements, allowing hostilities to claim more lives as the fighting entered its fourth year, the latest human rights report says. It recorded 36 deaths and 157 injuries, a rise of nearly 50 per cent over the previous reporting period.
Mine action must extend beyond only removing those remnants of war to become a part of an effective toolkit for helping communities and countries recover and pursue sustainable peace, speakers told the Security Council today during a briefing on a comprehensive approach to mine action and explosive hazard threat mitigation.
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks at the high-level dialogue on implementing the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in Central Asia, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, today:
ASHGABAT, 13 June (Department of Political Affairs) — United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres chaired a high-level Central Asian dialogue on implementing the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in that region today, as Ministers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan adopted a joint declaration on strengthening regional collaboration in countering terrorism.
Opening its 2017 substantive session today, the Special Committee on Decolonization approved two draft resolutions on the transmission of information from Non-Self-Governing Territories, and on the dissemination of information on decolonization.
Concluding its 2017 resumed session with the adoption of its report, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today forwarded the applications of 191 groups to the Economic and Social Council with the recommendation that they be granted special consultative status, as opinions diverged over certain elements of the text as well as the Committee’s underlying editorial practices.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi urged Governments today to deliver a massive increase in places available for refugees in third countries, in line with last September’s New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, as the agency opened its annual resettlement consultations.
