Gilles Noghès, Permanent Representative of Monaco to the United Nations, announced today the launching of the €10,000 joint Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation/UNCA (United Nations Correspondents Association) Global Prize for the best coverage of climate change issues. The Prize, the first in that field, would be awarded by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon next 30 October, during the UNCA Gala Dinner, Mr. Noghès said at a Headquarters press conference.

A year after Cyclone Nargis devastated much of Myanmar and intensified the suffering of children throughout the country, human rights groups urged the Security Council to move swiftly to protect the tens of thousands of children recruited as soldiers by local armed groups.

Agriculture was a mainstay of development in Africa, but was also a neglected sector, Robert Vos, Director, Development Policy and Analysis Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, told correspondents today at the launch of the 2009 Africa Economic Report, adding that “regional value chains” could enhance African agricultural markets through cooperation, rather than focusing on competition between African countries.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs today launched a revised appeal for $543 million to meet the humanitarian needs of internally displaced persons in Pakistan, Under-Secretary-General John Holmes said today at Headquarters.

States parties to the Rome Statute must strengthen cooperation with the International Criminal Court to arrest and bring to justice eight people charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity who remained on the run, the President of the assembly of signatory States said today.

Today’s observance of the first World Oceans Day provided an opportunity to highlight the challenges of protecting the oceans, safeguarding their resources and preventing criminal acts at sea, a panel of ocean experts said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

An absence of immediate action to address child labour worldwide would not only result in a global failure to do better in terms of combating that evil, but in a further deterioration of the situation, as the current economic crisis continued to have an adverse effect on developing countries, Piet de Klerk, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Netherlands, said at Headquarters today.

Ahead of the Security Council’s adoption of a groundbreaking resolution on children and armed conflict, the top United Nations official on the issue, Radhika Coomaraswamy, and Claude Heller, Permanent Representative of Mexico, today hailed the resolution as a major step forward in the fight against impunity for crimes against children.

The Security Council would meet this afternoon to adopt a resolution on children and armed conflict and it would renew by month’s end the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) set to expire on 31 August, John Sawers, Council President for August and the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, said today during a Headquarters news conference.

5 August 2009

Spokesperson's Noon Briefing

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

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

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Michèle Montas, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.

Good afternoon, all.

**Statement on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea