The holding of peaceful, credible elections, protection of civilians, regional stabilization, control of mineral resources and security-sector reform presented the major challenges in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the coming year, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative told the Security Council this morning.

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the third meeting of the Contact Group on Libya, as delivered by B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, in Abu Dhabi, 9 June:

Urging all States to cooperate fully with the sanctions imposed on Iran over concern about the nature of its nuclear activities, the Security Council today extended for one year the mandate of the Panel of Experts created last year to help monitor the measures’ implementation.

Women and girls bore a disproportionate burden of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and if Governments were serious about halting the disease in the next decade, they must throw their political weight squarely behind that issue by urgently expanding sexual and reproductive health services, legislating gender equality, and understanding that no gains would be made without ending violence against women, said participants today in a General Assembly panel discussion on “Women, girls and HIV”.

Calling for a “prevention revolution” on the second day of the General Assembly’s High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, ministers and other high-ranking Government officials stressed that programmes to combat the disease must be mainstreamed into national health systems during the next phase of the global response to the pandemic, while emphasizing that those directly affected must be included in the search for solutions.

The Security Council this morning extended the mandate of the Panel of Experts helping monitor sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for an additional year, until 12 June 2012. Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 1985 (2011) maintaining the current mandate of the group that it established in June 2009.

The following statement was issued on 9 June by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro’s remarks at the General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS side event: “The Missing Face of Children and AIDS — Progress on 10 Years of Commitments”, in New York on 9 June:

Following are of UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro’s remarks to an interfaith prayer breakfast — “A Dialogue on Leadership: Moving from Commitment to Action” — side event of the General Assembly’s High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, in New York on 10 June: