The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today launched an independent report that calls for a new global financing initiative that could help fill an annual $16 billion funding gap in education, amid evidence that many countries were not on track to meet the pledges made at the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, 10 years ago.

Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations and Acting Head of MINUSTAH Edmond Mulet said that since his arrival in Haiti last Thursday his main task had been to put the mission back on its feet. With most of its leadership dead or not operational, his main task was to “put the whole thing back together”.

The absolute number of deaths during wartime ‑‑ people killed by violent means as well as deaths from disease or other non-violent causes that would not have occurred had there been no war ‑‑ always went down rather than up, suggesting a decline in the human cost of wars, no matter where in the world they were fought, according to a new study on war deaths up to 2007.

There was no clear picture yet as to what extra damage this morning’s aftershock had caused in Haiti, John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, said at Headquarters today.

This evening at 6:00, the Secretary-General will participate in a mass to remember those who died in Haiti. The mass will be presided over by the Permanent Observer of the Holy See, Archbishop Celestino Migliore. And yesterday, as I’m sure you know, the Secretary-General marked the one-week anniversary of the earthquake by laying a wreath in honour of the victims at 4:53 p.m. precisely, and by calling for a moment of silence throughout the UN system to remember those who died.

Immediate employment for the Haitian population was a crucial part of the response to the earthquake, Rebeca Grynspan, the new Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said this afternoon, as she announced a dramatic ramping up of the agency’s Cash-for-Work in the devastated nation.

The UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) is welcoming the establishment of a humanitarian corridor between the Dominican Republic and the Republic of Haiti -- that is between Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince. And this will allow the speedy delivery of aid to the areas most affected by the earthquake. And the Mission, as well as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), says that the security situation remains under control.

In July last year, the United Nations submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel a claim for reimbursement for the losses that the United Nations had sustained in a number of incidents that occurred during the Gaza conflict of 27 December 2008 to 19 January 2009. Pursuant to an arrangement reached, the Government of Israel has made a payment of $10.5 million to the United Nations in respect of the losses sustained.

“It is sheer dumb luck that we have succeeded as a world without a nuclear catastrophe since 1945, and not a function of good policy,” Gareth Evans, an honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne, said today at a Headquarters press conference sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Australia.

The Secretary-General strongly condemns the bomb attacks in Baghdad today that have killed dozens of people and injured scores more. No cause can justify these attacks on civilian targets. He extends his heartfelt condolences to the Government of Iraq and to the victims of these criminal acts, as well as to their families.