With the number of journalists killed worldwide surging to 70 last year, Robert Mahoney, Deputy Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists called for stronger action by the United Nations, as he announced the release of his group’s annual report this morning.

Ad Melkert, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, briefing the Security Council on Iraq, discussed the de-Baathification process, and said that the UN Mission in Iraq has consistently emphasized the due-process requirements and refrained from judging the outcomes. What eventually will matter most, he said, is the acceptance by the Iraqi people of the election result.

In their first visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in six years, senior United Nations political aides had called on Korean officials last week to return promptly to the six-party talks on eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula, B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, said at a Headquarters news conference today.

Chad wished to work out a compromise between a total withdrawal of the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad and merely extending its mandate as it stood, the country’s Permanent Representative said at Headquarters this morning.

The Secretary-General condemns the attack by unidentified armed assailants against a UNAMID police convoy returning to Nyala in South Darfur from a confidence-building patrol to the El Sharif camp for internally displaced persons in South Darfur on 16 February. Seven of the eight formed police unit members escorting the patrol were injured in the exchange of fire.

In spite of the hard task it faced, the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala was delivering “very obvious” results and breaking taboos, President Álvaro Colom Caballeros said at a Headquarters press conference today.

The resignation of Yvo de Boer as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change would not substantially disturb ongoing negotiations leading up to the climate change conference in Mexico later this year, Janos Pasztor, Director of the Secretary-General’s Climate Change Support Team, told correspondents this morning.

Cooperation among military partners in Haiti was good following last month’s devastating earthquake, Major General Floriano Peixoto Vieira Neto, Force Commander of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), told correspondents at Headquarters today.

Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe briefed the Security Council on the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, saying that the United Nations remains deeply concerned at the current stalemate and calls for the resumption of talks on final-status issues, implementation of Road Map commitments, continued efforts to improve economic and security conditions, and a different and more positive approach to Gaza.

The Security Council this morning heard from Under-Secretaries-General John Holmes and Alain Le Roy in an open meeting on Haiti. Mr. Holmes said that help is badly needed for the displaced people and their host communities, and Mr. Le Roy provided an update on the work of the United Nations Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, in maintaining order while restoring its capabilities, following the loss of at least 91 staff in the earthquake.