A draft global plan of action to prevent trafficking in persons was not a panacea, but a “practical tool to further efforts in a focused way to achieve results”, Andrei Dapkiunas, Permanent Representative of Belarus to the United Nations, said today as he shed light on efforts to create a comprehensive United Nation strategy to address human trafficking.

Delegates at the just-concluded Third Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference today adopted an agenda and reportfor the 2010 summit -- a “good omen” that reflected encouraging political realities and a fresh, cooperative spirit, which had eluded past meetings, Committee Chair Boniface Chidyausiku of Zimbabwe said at a Headquarters press conference.

There was no threat of African States withdrawing from the Statute governing the International Criminal Court to protest the indictment of Sudan’s President Omer Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the President of the assembly of signatory States to the Statute said this afternoon.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) should be eliminated in favour of regional monetary reserves or other collective measures, President Rafael Correa Delgado of Ecuador said at Headquarters this morning. “Wipe it off the face of the planet,” President Correa said at a press conference following his address to the Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development.

Ousted Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya declared today that he will return to his country on Thursday and he did not fear for his life, because “the blood of Jesus Christ”, his convictions and conduct during his entire life, as well as the Honduran masses who had taken to the streets, would protect him.

General Assembly President-elect Ali Abdussalam Treki ( Libya) pledged this afternoon that the priorities of his tenure would be the war on poverty in Africa, United Nations reform, disarmament, and implementation of United Nations resolutions, including those concerning the question of Palestine.

While the activities of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown were expected to end in October, the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor in The Hague, Netherlands, including appeals, was expected to run until February 2011, the Court’s Prosecutor, Stephen Rapp, said today at a Headquarters press conference.

The ministerial meeting of the Security Council on the Middle East that took place today was critical in reaffirming a common position on the peace process after the Gaza crisis and Israeli elections, Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, said today at a Headquarters press conference.

Responding to a 13 May deadline set by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, some 69 countries filed claims to oceanic territories along their coast for an area extending 200 nautical miles from shore, said Hariharan Pakshi Rajan, Secretary of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia, said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon that the Security Council was in closed-door meetings to discuss possible new sanctions against leaders of armed groups in Somalia, and perhaps Eritrea, and that tackling impunity was the next major concern in Somalia.