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

While the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue a warrant for the arrest of the President of Sudan had made the peace process more difficult and challenging, it had not really dislocated operations or had a drastic effect on the ground, General Martin Luther Agwai, Force Commander of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) said at Headquarters today.

7 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 Marie Okabe, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.

Good afternoon.

**Peacekeeping

Senior United Nations Police officials today praised the work being carried out by female police officers in the world body’s peacekeeping missions, and urged Member States to deploy more women, who added a much-needed and unique perspective to police units, especially in building trust and serving as role models for local women and girls.