The 18 newly elected members of the Human Rights Council would need to prove themselves by implementing the international human rights agenda at home and abroad, Craig Mokhiber, Deputy Director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said during a Headquarters news conference this afternoon.

Stressing that only 1 to 2 per cent of the millions of human trafficking victims were rescued every year, Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), implored Member States this afternoon to do a better job of combating the scourge.

The responsibility to protect was focused on non-indifference and making it everyone’s responsibility to ensure that no one would ever again have to look back with the mixture of emotions that had greeted the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur, asking, “How did we let this happen?”, Gareth Evans, Co-Chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, said at a Headquarters press conference today.

Following the commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of peacekeeping last year, this year’s International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers placed special emphasis on the theme of “Women in Peacekeeping: the Power to Empower”, Alain Le Roy, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

Strategies to promote clean, renewable energy, especially in the developing world, where poor communities remained heavily reliant on wood and charcoal for most of their fuel, must be included in the global climate change deal expected to be reached in Copenhagen in December, Kandeh Yumkella, Chairman of the Secretary-General’s newly-launched Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change, said at Headquarters today.

General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann said that the global conversation begun this week achieved what many believed to be unachievable, at a Headquarters press conference to announce the adoption of an outcome document meant to spark a redesign of the world’s financial and economic architecture.

Flagging sickle-cell anaemia as one of the world’s most common but most misunderstood health problems, a panel featuring African health ministers and medical professionals urged Governments, health workers and even families to use 19 June as an opportunity to raise awareness of sickle-cell anaemia in order to “bring this disease out of the shadows” and help improve the quality of life for people living with it.

The problems in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo had no single solution, but required a combination of efforts to deal with protection of civilians and integration into the national army of armed groups, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative said today at a Headquarters press conference.

General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann today strongly condemned the attempted coup against the democratically elected Government of President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, calling it a serious threat to democratic rule there, according to a statement delivered late today at a Headquarters press conference.

Somalia’s Transitional National Government had amassed 5,000 troops to secure the country, and was working to mobilize popular support against a militarized opposition believed to be attempting an overthrow of the newly formed administration, the country’s Foreign Minister said at Headquarters today.