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.

The head of the United Nations World Food Programme today warned that, while the international relief effort in Haiti was beginning to gain its footing, the scale of the devastation in the earthquake-ravaged country was immense, and helping more than 2 million people rebuild their lives would require the engagement of a broad spectrum of humanitarian actors “for at least the next 12 months”.

The United Nations top official in Haiti had presented to Government ministers today a proposal to better coordinate delivery of urgently needed food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies to people in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, Tony Banbury, Principal Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, said this afternoon.

Participants in yesterday’s conference in Montreal on aid to Haiti after its devastating earthquake had agreed that planning for long-term recovery must be started while emergency assistance continued, United Nations officials told journalists at Headquarters this afternoon.