20 July 2009

Spokesperson's Noon Briefing

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICES OF THE SPOKESPERSON FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

AND THE SPOKESPERSON FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT

 

Two senior advisers to the President of the General Assembly for the upcoming Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development today underlined the urgency for restructuring the global financial system, during a press conference at Headquarters.

In response to the announcement that leaders of the Major Economies Forum had agreed to hold rising temperatures to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) today reaffirmed its call for short- and medium-term targets that would limit increases to below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Angela Kane, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Management, today appealed to both diplomats and staff at United Nations Headquarters in New York to help implement the General Assembly decision of a smoke-free United Nations premises by observing the smoking ban at United Nations Headquarters.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) considered the absence at the highest levels of the developed world at the United Nations Conference on the World Financial Crisis and its Impact on Development to be a form of disrespect, the Prime Minister of Belize and current chairman of CARICOM, Dean Barrow, said today at a Headquarters press conference.

The head of the United Nations panel of climate-change experts today said he was encouraged by climate pledges at the recently concluded G-8 summit but was also concerned that “we have very little time” to reach even those general commitments, which still fell short of what was required by science.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, fearing that in the midst of the global financial crisis the rights of elderly women would fall by the wayside, was encouraging States parties to the women’s Convention to mainstream older women’s concerns into national strategies and development programmes, Committee Chairperson and expert from Egypt, Naela Mohamed Gabr, said this afternoon during a Headquarters press conference.

The Coalition for the International Criminal Court called on the Security Council to press for the surrender and trial of President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and others wanted for serious crimes committed in Darfur, at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

Emphasizing that the internal displacement crisis in Pakistan had reached a critical stage, United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes today implored the international community to bolster aid to the more than 2 million people who had fled the conflict between Government forces and insurgents in the country’s North-West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan.

The convergence of the global food, fuel, financial and economic crises, against a backdrop of climate change, presented an unprecedented opportunity for action to reshape the development agenda and should not be wasted, Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, said at a Headquarters press conference today.