These are the remarks of UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro in Bangkok on 14 October to the Regional Coordination Mechanism meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific:

Underscoring the “negative, even catastrophic impact” of extractive industries on the social, cultural and political rights of indigenous peoples, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today that the issue would be a major focus during his second mandated term which runs until May 2014.

Following are the remarks by UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro to the Second High-Level Symposium on the Development Cooperation Forum, in Luxembourg today, 18 October:

This is the text of remarks by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today to the Executive Committee of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) in Geneva:

As the Sixth (Legal) Committee today considered the law of transboundary aquifers, delegates said that the elaboration of sound international principles that provide guidelines for the proper stewardship of cross-border aquifers was ever more relevant given the growing global demand for freshwater.

Broadening arms control, reducing surplus weapons stockpiles and increasing transparency over sales and transfers dominated debate in the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) today, as delegates sought to rally support around several draft resolutions aimed at staunching the flow of readily available, easy-to-use instruments of modern violence — conventional weapons.

The Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Torture today proposed to the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) a worldwide ban on the practice of prolonged solitary confinement, which had increased throughout the globe, especially in the context of the “war on terror” and “threats to national security”.

By broadening the use of different media platforms including traditional means of communication, as well as new media, and partners in outreach, the United Nations Under‑Secretary‑General for Communications and Public Information, Kiyo Akasaka, today told the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), his Department was fulfilling its mission to “inform, engage [and] act.”

Following are Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at the opening of a photo exhibition celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Peace Corps and the twentieth anniversary of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), delivered by Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, in New York, 18 October: